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At the end of the book will be found more extended 
notices of the following works by the same author: 

Of Communion with God 

Life, Times and Philosophy ofPlotinos 

The Message of Philo Judaeus 

Numenius of Apamea, Works, Life and Teachings 

The Gathas, or Hymns of Zoroaster, in English 

The Greek 'Pilgrim's Progress/ or, the Picture, by Kebes 

A Garland of Fancies; A Garland of Aspirations 

Friendship 

Hymns to the Universal Divinity 



g>tubfeg in 

Comparative Eeltgion: 

g>albatton m $lam CngltSfj 

Htngutetic -progress' tfic &oot of tEftfologp 

Hinguistit ©tgguisw of tHnioerSal Religion 

Culmination of biblical Ualues 
tfjrougf) Comparator Religion 






jWobern Snterpretatton* $res& 

$. ®. ?Box 02, itteoforo, ittasfc. 






Copyright, J9S4, by Modern Interpretations Press, 
All Rights* including that of Translation, Reserved* 



APR 28 1914 



^CI.A369884 



i&albation 

in $lain Cnglistf) 

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Salvation in Plain English* 



meDTJEUAE DUIE6CC 
Christianity 

the Gospel 
of 3esns, 
wfto as mediator 
of a new Covenant 

POngftt 

and ransomed 

bis Gleet, 

so tbat »y Justification 

tDrougn Taitft, 

forgiving 

tneir sins, 



they 



eternal 
Salvation. 



PLAIN ENGLISH 

The religion of Growth 
teaches 

the Good News that 
Anybody who would he a Helper 

must as Agent 
of a new Administration 

gather, 
and liberate, defend and educate 

his Neighbors, 

so that by Moralization 

through Enthusiasm 

they themselves preventing 

their own possible future Errors, 

may attain unto 

an Era of 
Wholeness. 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 1 

SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 
A MISSIONARY INTERPRETATION 

THE AGE'S DESIRE FOR FAITH 

Is our age an era of scepticism and unbelief, of cyn- 
icism and agnosticism? Hardly, for never before have 
so many and so great ventures of faith been planned and 
consummated. Municipalities have planned public works 
costing an empire's ransom; corporations are increasing 
their obligations by the billions; individuals engage in 
gigantic ventures of chance. It is not too much to say 
that the age is approaching when faith, or confidence, can 
remove mountains. The destroyer of dogmas is left to 
preach to empty pews; the iconoclast is starved into a 
builder or architect. 

If, then, there be any devout who deplore scepticism, 
incredulity, agnosticism, let them take comfort; if there 
be any sceptics, it is only because their minds misunder- 
stand the longing of their hearts; if there be any in- 
credulous souls, it is only because they have misappre- 
hended and misunderstood; if there be any agnostics, it 
is because they have confused dialects. Our age is the 
long heralded Era of Faith; and it would kneel before 
him who would enable its mind to assent to that for 



2 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

which its heart is yearning. We no more need to search, 
to persuade, to convert ; all that is needed is to translate 
theological dialects into plain English, that the world- 
weary travelers following the Star of Truth may find 
the new-born Babe of Bethlehem in their own hearts, 
and worship their own true Christ. 

Surely, little of faith must we be, if we do not suf- 
ficiently believe in the salvation of our own Christianity, 
to know it is the truth ; and that if there be any difficulty 
with the truth, this difficulty must be one of mistransla- 
tion ! Instead, then, of sending missionaries, of writing 
commentaries, or of holding camp meetings, let us open 
the dictionary and render the Word Divine of life and 
immortality into modern idiom. 

Are there any, then, who fail to believe that Jesus, 
as mediator of a new Covenant, bought and ransomed 
his elect, so that through justification by faith our sins 
are forgiven us unto the attainment of eternal salvation? 
For their benefit, then, let us translate this medieval dia- 
lect into plain English, and it will not be a question of 
inviting the unbelievers into the empty church, but we 
will have to keep them from overcrowding it. Ho, every 
one that thirsteth, come unto the river of life ! 






SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 3 

II. LIMITATIONS OF TEEATMENT 

Absurd, say you? Fanciful? A joke? On the con- 
trary, this is the result of the most searching accuracy, 
the closest following of the text. Surely, a rational 
meaning should not be objected to by those who believe 
the medieval formulation is the truth! What, afraid of 
common sense? Or is it too good to believe? Is it 
impossible that such good news be true? 

Unfortunately, the detailed proof of the exact cor- 
respondence of what we have given above to the medi- 
eval formulation would be too wearisome for the general 
reader ; he would close the book, and forsake it for some- 
thing more interesting. Here can be given only such 
general observations as may tempt "him who runs' ' to 
read, in hopes that, being interested, he may at length 
stop for a little while, and meditate thereon. 

Let us, besides, begin at the last point, which attracts 
us most, and work our way backwards unto the first, 
that we may best understand the conception closest at 
hand and be induced once more to double on our tracks 
and practically follow the only road that leads from 
Growth to Wholeness. 



4 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

I. SALVATION IS WHOLENESS 
Is there a single scholarly dictionary which would not 
translate "soteria" into " safety' ' or "wholeness"? Is 
it likely that this is an exclusively sectarian term, when 
every Greek meal was begun by a libation to "Zeus 
Soter"? When the most common lodge name among 
Greek secret societies was "Salvationists"? Or will any 
deny that the message of Jesus is "the good news of 
your wholeness"? "This day is wholeness come to this 
house." "Neither is there wholeness in any other 
name." "To you is the Word of this wholeness sent." 
Are we not, like the sick damsel, possessed by the spirit 
of divination, which cried, ' ' These men show unto us the 
way of wholeness." What else would be the opposite 
of death? "Godly sorrow worked repentance to whole- 
ness not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world 
worketh death." "I know this shall work to my whole- 
ness," cries the suffering apostle. "Eeceiving the end 
of your enthusiasm, even the wholeness of your souls." 
"Beloved," writes Jude, "when I gave all diligence to 
write to you of the common wholeness." Well may we 
close with the toast or acclamation of the Eevealer, al- 
most an accurate translation of the French "Vive" or 
the Italian "Viva," "Wholeness, or long life, to our 
God which sitteth on the throne." What else could it 
mean? Surely not that even God needed salvation! 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 5 

II. ETEENITY IS AN AGE OE EEA 

The Greek word "aion" cannot very well mean more 
than age, period, or era, inasmuch as it is frequently 
used to denote "this" age, or world. Again, the frequent 
New Testament statements to the effect that during this 
physical life or existence "eternal life" can be acquired 
or lost, suggests that it can mean no more than so many 
modern writers interpret it to mean : namely, a spiritual 
state, or aspirational condition or period. No man in 
his senses will let the metaphysician spin around him his 
bewildering web of sophistries about unending time, or 
ages continuing with endless recurrence. True, there is 
many a mathematical fraction which we can even prove 
would never come to its last figure, like the square root 
of seven, or the decimal expression for one-third. But 
evidently an expression referring to the health of our 
physical and mental natures can mean nothing but a 
temporary condition ; or it may mean a state of existence 
or intellection that is incommensurable with our objec- 
tive weights and measures. That is all it can possibly 
mean ; and, indeed, that is all our word did mean to the 
average Greek mind, as the Dictionary reveals it. 



6 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

in. SINS AEE ERRORS 

Like most cherished delusions, the word "sin" is an 
English conception and expression, about 'which it is 
perfectly possible to recriminate to the point of mutual 
excommunication, but which no more than represents a 
different Greek thought. So we have "hamartia," the 
missing of the mark by an arrow, or "paraptoma," a 
false step. Evidently, it is not a positive crime; it is 
no more than a negative error, failure to hit, in-com- 
petence, mis-take. It is a misfortune, rather than a 
wicked deed. It is something to be pitied, to be over- 
looked, to be corrected, rather than to be punished, to be 
atoned for, to be weighed and paid for. It is a wrong 
course of hygiene, a mistaken diet, a wandering from 
the goal; it is not an object, an actual material, aggres- 
sive entity to be weighed, to be given an equivalent for, 
to be balanced with good deeds. No doubt, errors may 
entail positive sicknesses, morbid creations, and demand 
stern correction; but the greatest criminal deserves the 
most pity, the most redemption, the most healing, the 
most far-reaching and inspiring instruction. God, who 
knows all, forgives all; and, no doubt, in his sight the 
grief-stricken publican is worthy of more than the self- 
complacent Pharisee. 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 7 

IV. FORGIVENESS IS PREVENTION 
If sins are errors, it is evidently impossible to do more 
than forget past errors, and prevent future ones. For- 
giveness is not found in tile Greek. We have "apoluo," 
to remit a claim or memory; " charizomai, J ' to be gra- 
cious to; but most "aphiemi," which has four meanings 
in English : 1. to emit, as, a cry, Mk. xv. 37 ; Mt. xxvii. 50. 
2. to omit, let alone, Mt. xxiii. 23. 3. permit, let, suffer, 
as Mt. vii. 4; xix. 14, etc. Last, 4. dismiss, reject — to send 
away, to drive from the mind — Mt. xiii. 36; Mk. iv. 36. 
In Rom. iii. 25, we have a passing by; in Rom. iv. 7, from 
Ps. xxxii. 1, 2, to "cover over" temporarily, till it can at 
proper time be disposed of. Evidently, if sins are errors, 
they can be only forgotten, or prevented for the future. 
Had we the time, we might enumerate primitive Hebrew 
ideas ; but they would not alter the possibility or impos- 
sibility of one person or mind altering the moral con- 
sciousness of another's. True, to the Jew sin and sick- 
ness were identical; so when Jesus heals the palsied 
man (Matt. ix. 2-8), it is understood he forgives sins. 
The Greek, however, has the perfect passive tense, mean- 
ing, "thy errors results have already been worked 
out" — a declaration of encouragement for the future. 
Or are pious wishes sinful? May we not wish for a man 
that his possible future errors may be prevented by a 
"change of mind" — that is, repentance? 



8 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

V. FAITH IS ENTHUSIASM 

Enthusiasm was the only meaning which presented it- 
self to the Greek mind at hearing of "pistis"-^-so Plato, 
Polybius, Josephus, Plutarch, Diodorus (i. 86). Imagine 
then how ingenuous is Thayer, the editor of the standard 
"New Testament Dictionary/' who assigns no New 
Testament occurrences to this acknowledged primary 
meaning, while he assigns all New Testament occurrences 
of the word to a "special New Testament meaning' 9 of 
"conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to 
God, and divine things; together with trust, and holy 
fervor born of faith (itself!) and conjoined with it." 
Notice, on the contrary, that in the Synoptics and St. 
£Paul we are not told that men are justified by "faith" 
in anything; but by faith, by itself. So it is not faith 
in any doctrine which will move mountains — it is just 
faith alone, just enthusiasm — such a fervor as supports 
a man in a practice of right conduct, so that through 
enthusiasm one becomes (justified) moralized, not 
"whitewashed." The best commentators understand 
"faith in Christ" as meaning faith in God, of which 
Jesus Christ is the author, or exciter ; or, as in Jas. ii. 1, 
the faith which Jesus exercised. This enthusiasm we 
nowadays call "suggestion," the power exercised in hyp- 
notism, which has appeared in all ages and races — an 
"entheasm." 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 9 

VI. JUSTIFICATION IS MOEALIZATION 

Thayer acknowledges that, "according to the analogy 
of the verbs in 'oo,' it means to make, cause to be right- 
eous ' ' — by education, exhortation or punishment. Then, 
just as he did with "faith," in spite of many classic 
examples, he refers all New Testament occurrences of the 
word "dikaioo" to the figurative meaning to acquit, to 
"white-wash," to exhibit, declare, pronounce one to be 
righteous. The illogical nature of this, to "pronounce" 
or "declare" a person to be a "condition" of good con- 
science, never appeals to his risibility. No doubt the 
word was at times used to mean "acquit" — but why 
should it mean that in every instance? Notice, on the 
contrary, the good sense this "practice of right conduct" 
makes in many passages : Mt. xii. 37 ; Lk. xviii. 14 ; Acts 
xiii. 39; Eom. ii. 13, iii. 24, iii. 30, iv. 2, v. 1, 9 
viii. 30; L Cor. vi. 11; Gal. ii. 16, 17; iii. 8, 11, 24; v. 4, 6 
I. Tim. iii. 16, Titus iii. 7. For instance (Eom. iii. 28) 
"We reckon for ourselves therefore that a human being 
is caused to practice right conduct by enthusiasm, apart 
from the rites of a ritual law." 

We must acknowledge that in Eom. viii. 33 Paul uses 
the verb in both senses: "Who shall lay anything to the 
charge of God's elect? It is God that whitewashes (be- 
cause he causes men to practise right conduct)." 

The best proof we are right is that it harmonizes James 
and Paul. James says, Without loving deeds, enthusi- 
asm does not whitewash ; Paul says, "The rites of a ritual 
law will never make you practice morality ; for that you 
need enthusiasm (faith)." 



10 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

VIL RANSOMING IS PROTECTION, LIBERATION 

AND EDUCATION 

No dictionary will deny that "lutroo," variously ren- 
dered "ransom," "redeem," "redemption," "deliver," 
meant to classic writers protection, liberation and edu- 
cation ; and this we find in Lk. i. 68, Acts vii. 25 ; Lk. xxiv. 
21, as protection; and in Titus ii. 14 as education, in 
"purifying to himself a people." As to the remaining 
passages: 

1. It is not used exclusively of Jesus 's redemption, 
but also of Moses's, Acts vii. 25. 

2. We compare Mk. x. 45, Mt. xx. 28 with I. Tim. ii. 6, 
and find they disagree as to the number of the redeemed ; 
and are vague, not explaining redemption's price, or 
from or to what. According to Acts x. 35, 44 human 
righteousness and God-fear alone insure acceptation of 
God without any mediation. 

3. We have mutual contradiction, hence destruction 
of I. Cor. i. 30 and Eph. i. 14. 

4. Titus ii. 14, and I. Pet. i. 18 are taken from Old 
Testament symbology which Hebrews says was worth- 
less in itself, and only a stop-gap, a representation, which 
effected no actual change, and whose repetition proved 
they were worthless except as a rite (x. 1-6; ix. 9, 10). 
A lamb, and Jesus the man were different things, anyway. 

5. Eom. viii. 23 makes of redemption an "adoption," 
a needless act as God is already father of all things. 

6. Heb. ix. 12, 15; Eph. i. 7, 11 make of redemption 
a resurrection of the flesh. There will be few, in our 
modern day, to defend this. 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 11 

VIII. THE ELECT AEE OUK NEIGHBOES 

The "Elect" are evidently those whom Providence 
has chosen to be or come in contact with us. Jesus taught 
the young Jewish rabbi that our "neighbor" was he who 
needed our assistance, whoever he was. So the modern 
formulations of Christianity make of the elect all those 
who hear and heed the call. None who does the latter 
would be told by any of our modern sects that he was 
not one of the elect. There was a time when men believed 
that before the creation of the world God had elected 
a certain undiminishable and unincreasable number of 
elect from among a greater number preordained to 
eternal damnation for the glory of God. At present men 
believe this — and more than this, namely that all are 
elect who receive and heed the call. In other words, 
to us the elect are they whom God has elected to come 
into any contract with us, namely, our neighbors. 

Mistranslation is at the bottom of much. In Eom. ix. 
18, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will," what 
is the opposite to this? "And in respect of whomsoever 
he wills, he hardeneth i himself \" Surely not, that man 
hardens himself, as opposite to God's mercy to some man. 



12 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 



IX. BUYING IS GATHEEING 

Another instance in which Thayer's dictionary assigns 
no New Testament references to the primary classical 
meaning, is "agorazo," to gather to the "agora" or 
town-hall square; while to the secondary meaning of 
marketing therein, buying, purchasing, Thayer attributes 
all New Testament passages. Or, take the word "peri- 
poieomai," by Thayer ever translated "buy" or "pur- 
chase," while Liddell and Scott give only "to make to 
remain over and above; to keep safe, preserve; of money, 
to save up, lay by; to put round upon, to procure, in 
middle, to keep or save for oneself; to compass, acquire, 
gain possession of." Even the Eevisers changed it to 
"acquire" in the margin (I. Tim. iii. 13). 

So "peripoieomai" does not mean purchase in Acts 
xx. 28; I. Tim. iii. 13 (see Acts viii. 20) ; II. Pet. ii. 1, 
Heb. viii. 1 ; by the Old Version itself translated "honor" 
in relation to man and God. 

"Agorazo" then means "gather" in Mt. xiv. 15; Lk. 
ix. 15 ; Jno. iv. 8, vi. 5 ; I. Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23, 30 ; Eph. v. 
16 ; Col. iv. 5 ; Gal. iii. 13, iv. 5 ; II. Pet. ii. 1. 

This is supported by the plight of Anselm of Canter- 
bury and the other Fathers who did not want either to 
acknowledge the existence and power of another being 
outside of God, who could have owned men, and so 
legally (and therefore justly) that God would have had 
to "purchase" man of him for "money" (imagine God 
or the devil passing "money" to each other!). The 
Fathers then disagreed on the subject leaving it uncer- 
tain ; some paying the money to God, others to the devil ! 
The Mahometan "slave of God" shows the origin of 
the error. The strongest proof of the sense to "gather" 
is in Rev. v. 9 (xiv. 3, 4), the blood, being "in the bloody 
robe" of Rev. xix. 13. 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 13 

X. COVENANT IS ADMINISTRATION 

The word "diatheke" meant: 

1. Last will, or testament, Heb. vii. 22 ; ix. 16, 17, 20. 

2. Agreement, contract, Mt. xxvi. 28; Mk. xiv. 24; 
Lk. xxii. 20; I. Cor. xi. 25; Heb. ix. 15, 20; Rev. xi. 19; 
ratified by oath, Lk. i. 72, 73, or promise Eph. ii. 12; 
Acts iii. 25, vii. 8 ; Rev. ix. 4, xi. 27. 

3. Scriptures about either above senses, II. Cor. iii. 
14. 

4. A church institution, II. Cor. iii. 6. 

5. A Greek mystery-term, the dregs of a divining cup. 

This term then appeared to Jews as Contract, and to 
Greeks, as Last Will. 

Evidently, it was easy to pun with such a word, and 
difficult to argue about it without punning. So we may 
excuse the argument in Heb. ix. 15-17, which perpetrates 
a pun as follows : 

1. A death is necessary to enforce a Diatheke-last- 
will. 

2. Even the old Diatheke-Contract was executed by 
a death, even if only of bulls, ix. 18-22. 

3. Hence the real Diatheke-last-will-and-Contract 
had to have a death, executor and sacrifice, though 
a better one. 

4. Hence the connection between the crucified Jesus 
and the new Diatheke-agreement of justification by faith 

(a) as mediator (Diatheke-agreement-maker, Heb. ix. 
15), 

(b) and surety (Diatheke-last-will executor, Heb. vii. 
22). 

"Diatheke" merely meant administration of last-will 
or agreement. 



14 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

XL MEDIATOR IS AGENT 

Going back to " Covenant/ ' we find that the allegoric 
movement represented by Philo had developed the angel- 
idea of the prophets into that of the patron-angel of 
Israel, Michael; who was high-priest, Logos, or Word, 
and Mediator, arbitrator, middleman, Agent, "mesites," 
of a Diatheke-Contract, Heb. viii. 6, xii. 24; used as 
executor of a Diatheke-last-will, Heb. ix. 15. This 
Michael-mediator, "ordained by angels,' ' Gal. iii. 19, 20, 
is ordained in the hands of One, the man Jesus, Heb. 
xii. 24; I. Tim. ii. 5 — possibly by being "called" to be 
high-priest by the adoptive voice heard at Baptism, Heb. 
v. 5. 

The word "mesites" evidently means no more than 
agent who executes the Contract or administers the will ; 
it is needless to add that in the secular Greek literature 
this was the meaning thereof. 



SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 15 

XIL JESUS IS A HELPER 

The word " Jesus' ' means " helper/ ' " savior/ ' " res- 
cuer.^ It was a common Jewish name, and we are 
told it was given to the infant by his mother because of 
this very meaning. It comes from the word meaning to 
rescue, to help; and to the Jew it sounded precisely as 
if we were to baptize a child Rescuer, or Helper, or Aider. 
In the degree, therefore, that anybody helped or aided 
or rescued, he was a Joshua, even as the servant of Moses 
was. Any helper or rescuer is therefore a Jesus to those 
he helps and rescues. 

XIII. GOSPEL IS GOOD NEWS 

The "Gospel" means in the Old English "God-spell," 
"good news;" precisely as in Greek "Evangel" means 
that. All good news is therefore a Gospel, an Evangel. 



16 SALVATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH 

XIV. CHEISTIANITY IS GEOWTH 
And what does Christianity mean in Plain English? 
It means the religion of a Christ — there have been many, 
false as well as true: "Christs Many." And "Christ" 
is the Greek for the Hebrew "Messiah," anointed. In 
the Old Testament, in the Major Prophets, we read 
"Touch not my Messiahs," Christs — the prophets. It 
is therefore not unscriptual to call Christs all men 
anointed by the holy Spirit of prophecy with a mission. 
The religion of mission and prophecy is a development, 
and progress and growth. Are we far wrong then when 
we suggest the religion of growth as the attainment of 
an era of health? What "holier" (healthier or wholier) 
Gospel could there be? Will it be that of the ascetics? 
Will it be that of these who have succeeded in remaining 
devout at the expense of the suicide of their reason? 
Will it be that of enthusiasts who remain immoral, or 
continuing in errors ? Will it be that of those who refuse 
education in order to be more spiritual? Will it be that 
of those who seek their own health, or give health to 
others for money? No : it will be the religion of "Growth, 
enforcing the Good News that Anybody who would be a 
Helper must, as agent of a new administration gather, 
protect, liberate and educate his neighbors; so that 
through the moralization of enthusiasm they themselves 
preventing their possible future errors they may attain 
unto an era of health." 



: 



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LINGUISTIC PEOGEESS THE EOOT OF 

THEOLOGY 

I. THE HUMOE OF EELIGION 

If you were asked to lay your finger on the representa- 
tive examples of the source of religious progress, would 
not the very last be the comic papers? Yet, their chief 
element is the use of language in new and unforeseen 
senses. Indeed, we might have to turn even to Humour's 
still less favored sister, Slang, for the ultimate source of 
Linguistic progress; and as language changes, alter the 
ideas expressed thereby. Then, when the language has 
changed sufficiently to form a new idiom, the more ancient 
terms of sacred objects, their meaning becoming obsolete, 
and little understood, surviving through devotion, become 
names ; and proper names lead to personification. Thus, 
by a process of humor is created a theology. 

Further again, these surviving, meaningless names 
are interpreted in terms of the more modern and civil- 
ized idiom; whereby the old name comes to have a new 
and more spiritual meaning. Thus the rain-worshipping 
Arabs trembled before the Thunderer, 'He who causes 
to fall,' Jahweh; but the more advanced Eabbi under- 
stood it as l I am that I am/ the motto of Eternity. 
This religious progress was accomplished by the means 
of a racial pun, a linguistic humor, a literary vision, a 
spiritual interpretation, — what the average modern man 
would take to be a 'profounder view/ of 'real' worship 
of Jahweh. 

But the average man is mistaken ; his prophecy is only 
a survival ; he has seen himself in a mirror ; he has looked 
at the world with colored glasses ; he has put the brake 
of antiquated survival on progress ; he has advanced on 
a treadmill; he has deceived himself; his revelation is 
a pun ; his mission is, and to Futurity will appear, a joke. 

Let us then first consider the facts of the Humor of 
Eeligious Progress ; we will then be ready for their signi- 
ficance, and remedy: namely, to understand nature; and 
their equally inevitable solution in the destiny of human 
perfectibility ; in short, their facts, their significance and 
remedy. 



2 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

A. THE FACTS OF THE HUMOR OF RELIGIOUS 

PROGRESS 
I. EXAMPLES OF UNCONSCIOUS HUMOR 

If this seems impossible, let us listen to a tangible ex- 
ample of this — from J. Hood Wright, who, in an article 
' Was Israel ever in Egypt' gave an English parallel to 
what Genesis must have seemed to Hebrews : 

"B. C. Now King Celtus took unto him to wife, and 
she bare him three daughters, Hibernia, Caledonia, and 
Britannia ; and the Sons of Hibernia were these : Ulster, 
Munster, Leinster and Connaught ; and Leinster was the 
father of Dublin. 

"A. D. 400. Now the Sons of Teuton were these: 
Anglus, Saxo, Juta, Danus, and Horsa. And to Saxo were 
born four sons, Essex, Middlesex, Wessex and Sussex. 
And the son of Juta, Kent. Now Kent sat by the seashore, 
and ordered the waves back from his chair, but lo ! they 
surrounded him altogether; then said he unto his serv- 
ants, 'Call me no more a God, for God ruleth the winds 
and the waves.' Therefore was the place called God-win, 
for there strove he with God, and could not prevail. And 
to Danus were born four sons, Northumber, Durham and 
York. Now, York was a great man ; and had three sons, 
riding upon horses ; to each of them he gave a province ; 
therefore is the name of that province called Riding 
unto this day. And his servants conspired against him, 
and smote off his head, and set it upon the walls of his 
city that he had built for himself withal; so he died: 
therefore they that speak in proverbs say, 'Alas, poor 
Yorick.' 

"A. D. 1066. And the high-priest said unto him, 'Thus 
hath the Lord said, Get thee up and take the land, for to 
thee have I given it; and he said, Good is the word of 
the Lord : I am willing to go up ; ' therefore was his name 
called Will-I-Am. Now the chief city of that land was 
great exceedingly, and much business was wrought there, 
and many a loan done ; therefore they called the name of 
that city London. 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 3 

"A. D. 1314. And Bruce fled from the face of his ene- 
mies, and a woman said to him, 'Turn in, my Lord;' and 
she was baking cakes, and the woman said to him, 'See 
that those cakes burn not.' And it came to pass that as 
his heart was heavy because the enemies of the Lord pos- 
sessed the land, lo! the cakes did burn. Therefore was 
that place called Bannockbum, and there did God give 
him great deliverance. ' ' 

Just as fantastic as this is, for instance, the derivation 
of babel the tower of God from bala confusion of speech. 
So we have Beersheba as a name derived from an oath 
being sworn there (Gen. 21.13) and in another place 
(26.33) derived from water being found there. Also 
Beer-lahai-roi (Gen. 25.11) is so named by Abraham 
(16.14) because "God sees" man; while Isaac (24.62) 
names it so because he comes up from the South country. 
But these Genesis puns are so well known as to make fur- 
ther exposition unnecessary. 

Another pun which contributed much to religious prog- 
ress, and the oblivion of which has led to much and per- 
sistent misunderstanding, is the one about Ashai and 
Therapeuo. The Egyptian Therapeutes were probably 
primarily servants of Serapis; but the Greek term, no 
doubt fully justified by their practises, made of them 
healers. So in Palestine. Ashai (as title of John) meant 
no more than baptizer ; and yet it was also the Aramean 
for medicine, healer; and the Essenes, from being Bap- 
tists, shortly became healers and exorcists, their book 
Sefer Refuot yet surviving. So the Hebrew archangel 
Jeshua from the meaning to help or save, was i interpre- 
ted' ' by the Greek iasomai, and the healing of diseases 
became naturally a part of his work, and so appeared in 
the Gospels. 

III. THEOLOGICAL MISFOKTUNES OF 
MUDDLEDNESS. 

Let us draw from the text of the Authorized Version 
an example of the unconsciousness of muddled thought 
which may: easily lead to theological errors. What wor- 



4 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

shipper lias not at some time or other been moved to 
unholy glee in listening to the Authorized Version of 
Isaiah xxxvii. 36. 

' ' Then the Angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in 
the camp of the Assyrians 185,000; and when they arose 
in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. ' ' 

Where, however, the humorous element is not so promi- 
nent, the muddledness may not be obvious, and confusion 
may lead to misapprehension; which, in matters of doc- 
trine, leads, in the estimation of the fanatic, to eternal 
damnation, or, in that of theologians, to doctrinal mon- 
strosities; while, in the mind of commentators, who are 
committed to reverence of the error, it leads to mental 
obliquity, and misinterpretation of parallel passages. 

Thus in John 3.15 the pronoun him, auton, belongs 
grammatically to the Son of Man; but its whole evidential 
value depends on " men's belief in Moses.' ' 

Again, in John 2.19 Jesus begins to say, "Destroy this 
temple in 3 days, and I will. ' ' Then His mind breaks off 
from temple, and springs to body — not, rebuild it, but, "I 
will resurrect it" — it, gramatically referring to temple. 
How mixed this metaphor is may be seen from 2.20, where 
the Jews so misunderstand it that the writer feels (2.21) 
forced to add an explanation. 

More serious is the classic pun in Heb. 9. 10, where the 
writer (Apollos?) hoodwinks the reader by the word ' dia- 
theke' into accepting a last-will-and-testament for a con- 
tract. He wishes to prove that Jesus is the exclusive 
(mediator) agent of a new contract, which Jeremiah 
(31.31) had prophesied would replace the broken one. 
Jesus, having died (the writer argues) has thereby put 
in force a last-will-and-testament which is good only on 
the death of the testator. Consequently his death gave 
us an inheritance of a last-will, so that a new contract 
has been made (Heb. 9.15-17). Then he shows that even 
the OT contract was enforced by the death of animals 
(as if the life-blood was the inheritance from the death 
of the animal?) and as the victim Jesus (as a human 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 5 

being) is better (than an animal), therefore the con- 
tract should be supposed stronger, surer, and more eter- 
nal, as His death can only take place once (resurrection 
is here not taken into account). 

IV. QUIBBLING 

Probably no book (not the Koran, nor the Zend Avesta) 
has had so much to suffer from punning, as the Bible. 
The Protestant habit of culling out single verses there- 
from and preaching from them exclusively has inevitably 
resulted in altering their meaning by a new context, until 
certain verses in the Bible have come to be of world- 
wide reputation for ridiculousness. But the main diffi- 
culty arose from the Hebrew subtlety of intellect which, 
having neither facts or science to work on, nor liberty to 
look elsewhere for divine revelation, successfully justi- 
fied their inclination and views, and in opposite schools 
at that, from the same scriptures. 

The most famous example of this quibbling is of course 
Paul's argument about seeds in Gal. 3.16, where the crux 
of his argument lies in its being not in the plural, but 
the singular, Christ. Unfortunately the word correspond- 
ing to seed in the lxx. original has the some form for both 
singular and plural, so that the argument loses all demon- 
strative value, and translated a Hebrew word in plural 
(see Meyer's Commentary). 

V. SOPHISTRY OF COMMENTATORS. 

The evil of such errors of grammar and syntax is, how- 
ever, not limited to the writer's own sincerity and sanity; 
when the devout are committed to reverence of the error 
it produces in them mental obliquity. So Paul, the master 
word-juggler, says (2 Cor. 3.3) : "Ye are the epistle of 
Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with 
the Spirit of the living God, written not in tables of stone, 
but in the fleshy tables of the heart. " Some ungodly 
commentators had indeed perceived that Paul had, vol- 
untarily or involuntarily, mixed his metaphor; but the 
reverential Meyer both stoutly denies this, and imme- 
diately goes on to say, as proof of this denial, that "he 



6 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

carries out the figure as it corresponds to the thing fig- 
ured thereby." What else is a mixed Metaphor f 

VI. LINGUISTIC OETHODOXY 
Is any further proof needed? If so, turn to the Eoman 
Catholic Church which has made the Latin language the 
test of orthodoxy. The Vulgate Version (and heaven 
knows how many times it has been altered!) is the sole 
standard even to the exclusion of its originals, the Greek 
and Hebrew texts, which, in many of their seminaries, 
are even not taught, though the guileless theologs be- 
fuddle themselves with Assyrian and Egyptian epi- 
graphy. Humorous as it seems to destroy one's own 
foundation, the Eoman Church is right ; every translation 
is a heresy; every language has a different congeries of 
associations for even corresponding words. No founda- 
tion was ever discovered for Orthodoxy than provin- 
cialism, reactionarism, and intellectual suicide. 

INTELLECTUAL SUICIDE THE OETHODOXY OF 

LINGUISTICS 

When it was by the School-men seen that the doctrine 
of the Trinity was irrational, the next step was to praise 
irrationality beyond reason, and to decry reason and its 
offspring Science. This is often denied by well-meaning 
Christian lay-men and preachers, but the evidence is 
clinched in Andrew White's "Conflict between Science 
and Eeligion, ' ' as in Galileo 's case. 

Yet it needed the monumental inconsistency of English 
practicality to face the problem fully in print ; and Car- 
dinal Newman's Apology and Grammar of Assent are 
eternal books in that they analyze to the end the 
problem into an unmistakable logical dilemna : the price 
of clear thought is rejection of orthodoxy; hence, be- 
cause I love orthodoxy, I will sacrifice clear thought; 
and Cardinal Newman answered a friend who cast in his 
teeth a modern church miracle by the logical statement 
that if you are going to " belie ve," it is as easy to be- 
lieve one thing as another. 






LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 7 

Tertullian long ago had said the last word of ortho- 
doxy: ' Credo quia impossible,' 'I believe just because 
it is impossible.' 

B. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMOBOUSNESS OF 
EELIGIOUS PEOGEESS 

L NOT DECEIT, BUT IMMATUEITY 

Generous, clear-thinking natures glancing at all these 
facts, are very likely to exclaim, with much righteous 
indignation, Deceit! Fraud! Evasion! Stupidity! Credu- 
lousness! Ignorance! But when we consider who the 
men were who were guilty of all this — the saints, the 
priests, the prophets of humanity, we realize that the 
very obviousness of such an explanation is its own con- 
demnation. Beneath all this, there is human nature, 
childishness, immaturity. Indeed, we may go further, 
and assert that in view of the condition of human nature 
all these errors and deceits were unavoidable, nay indis- 
pensable. However far civilization progresses, there will 
always be uninstructed childhood; there will be unindi- 
vidualized crowds ; there will never cease to be the eter- 
nally feminine the strength and beauty of whose emo- 
tions and passions will dominate and overwhelm their 
mind and logic. There will ever be backward races, or 
some races less civilized than others; there will always 
be personal animosities and antagonisms, leading to 
opposite formulations; never will there be a cessation 
of misfortunes, accidents and eventualities retarding, 
partializing mental grasp. We may even say that if such 
errors had not been made in the past they would occur 
again in the future. The view of our present imperfec- 
tions, and even of the limitations of the future, we may 
with the past deal gently. Nay, we may do so even 
reverently, and gratefully; for if we deal with it prop- 
erly, we may use it to understand ourselves, and draw 
from it guidance and inspiriation for the future ; for the 
world is yet young. 



8 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

HEREDITARY IMMATURITY 

The inevitableness of this Religious Immaturity is fur- 
ther emphasized by hereditary, mythological, ethnologi- 
cal considerations. Prehistoric customs survive without 
or even against conscious effort. If then by chance any 
accidental similarity of words would favor such a re- 
ligious pun, is it not almost inevitable? For instance, 
in Hebrew 

Barah to eat is the same root as here shith, covenant, 
or contract. The connection between these two must be 
sought in the almost pre-historic friendship blood-coven- 
ant in which the new bond was created and ratified by 
drinking some of each others' blood, and, as a result of 
the friendship covenant, being admitted to the common 
tribal meal; which later, restricted to temples, became 
sacramental and ceremonial. Naturally the meal would 
then come to be called a contract or testament (Lk. 
22.20), and a Paschal meal would be so explained ; and the 
old contract would by prophecy be replaced by a new con- 
tract ( Jer. 31.31) as contrast to the old yearly ceremony. 

THE MAGIC OF WORDS 
ROOTED IN PSYCHOLOGY 

The root of the trouble goes far back into the origins 
of the human race. While we may look on words as mere 
conventional means of expressing some defined thought, 
the aboriginal man, to whom words were far more won- 
derful than they are to us, looked on words as fetishes, 
possessing in themselves magic power. Even so enlight- 
ened a man as Origen (184-253 A. D.) argued against 
Celsus that if certain names of God were translated they 
would lose their exorcising value (Cels. 1.25, 25; 5.45). 
This magic value of some word has been recognized in 
most nations as the secret name of the divinity, by knowl- 
edge of which (as the Schemahamphorasch) a certain 
power of access to the divinity was won. Even after the 
dissolution of the mystery-rites this innate instinct of 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 9 

the magic of words remained ingrained in human na- 
ture ; and well does Goethe in his Faust make Mephisto- 
pheles descant on the fatal facility with which men be- 
lieve in, contend about, and devote themselves to — mere 
words. 

The psychologist will hardly smile at this, for he knows 
adolescents, among their love for beautiful sounds, favor 
certain vowels ; and who has not favorite girl-names, or 
names of men? Who does not love some words as such? 
What writer does not have his idioms? What language 
has no onomatopoeic expressions? Who has not his 
vituperative epithets? It is psychology then that shows 
us the inevitableness of linguistic magic, of the clinging 
to religious names; of the dangerous inclination to in- 
terpret ; of the inexorable and illuctable conservative ten- 
dency to put new wine into old deceptive bottles, instead 
of building new temples every year, as the Druidesses of 
the island of Sein were fabled to have done. 

SOCIOLOGICAL BASIS OF OETHODOXY 

The least reflection will demonstrate that human beings 
cannot unite in any action, movement or belief without 
some sort of compromise. Orthodoxy is the price of 
efficiency, therefore ; while liberalism is doomed to failure. 
As the constructive, reproductive impulse of human na- 
ture drives on the mundame stream of existence, it is 
bound to seek and enforce efficiency. But we have seen 
that efficiency is only another name for orthodoxy or con- 
servatism ; so that social welfare is rooted in orthodoxy of 
some sort. True, the crystallizations of orthodoxy may 
become impeding; the growth of life drives the bud 
through the bark of the stem: but it is the destiny of a 
bud itself to become a stem protected by bark. Ortho- 
doxy therefore is the other name of Survival. 

It is also no more than logical that compromise means 
resignation of individual thought. If we are to have 
unity in essentials, it must mean liberty (inefficiency) in 
non-essentials. Each succeeding generation, however, 
will take a new view of what essentials consist ; so that the 



10 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

essentials of yesterday became the non-essentials of to- 
day, and the trash of tomorrow. 

The chief characteristic of growth is change; and 
change is uncertainty; sociology therefore dooms defi- 
nitions of definitions of orthodoxy; like the Scotch Sect 
of the Original United Seceders which consisted of a 
single surviver. There will always be uninstructed chil- 
dren; crowds composed of men less advanced than others. 
Confusion is socially inevitable. 

INTEEPEETATIVE ALLEGORISM, AS THEOLOGY 

OF LINGUISTICS 
Besides, language has gone through many stages, each 
overlapping and parallel; so confused that frequently it 
is impossible to tell anything except by general ebb or 
flow. 

1. Consider the first stage of language when there 
were many similar sounds to denote any one object, which 
itself may not have been perceived clearly. 

2. Consider further the restricted language of ignor- 
ant, poor, or oppressed races. In spite of themselves 
they were picturesquely parabolical — like the Hebrew, 
who said, 'In the heart of heaven' (Dt. vi. 11) when he 
meant 'in the midst of the sky.' Metaphor, parable and 
allegory was native, and preceded accurate scientific lan- 
guage. 

3. Consider next the education of children, with their 
love of story-telling, and need of objective metaphorical 
teaching. Would not 'interpretation' be natural result- 
ant thereof? 

4. Consider further the fact that the acute intellects 
of the Eabbis had no sanifying facts of science, such as 
philology, archeology and history to grind. What else 
was left them but to interpret? To imagine that a dia- 
lectical distinction was an objective reality of nature? 
To fight about and discuss personal interpretations as 
creeds and doctrines? To suppose they had created an 
object when they had developed a word? Explanation 
was mere interpretation or derivation of words. 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY \ \ 

5. The next step was the doctrine of mystic interpre- 
tation, which represents the individual's fancy as a 
mystic secret, shared by none but himself. On this was 
founded all secret sects, Gnosticism, Occultism — and last, 
insanity. 

6. The well-disposed, devout mysticists were, how- 
ever, limited to interpretation of the sacred texts. Here 
we have Clement of Alexandria, Origen, the Mediaeval 
mystics. They discovered as many as four senses — the 
literal, mystical, the anagogical, and the spiritual. 

7. The last step in this direction was Swedenborg, 
who, on this linguistic quicksand, built a universal Law 
of Correspondences, but by the imperfections of the text 
he chose as his ultimate standard was forced to declare 
aggressively that its errors and inaccuracies had been 
perpetrated purposely by the divine spirit for the sake 
of a corresponding image. 

8. But this phase of linguistic development, of course, 
is extreme. The more practical orthodox (that is, those 
who were defending their own private opinions) made use 
of allegorism only so far as suited to their fancy, and 
literalism likewise. 

Athanasius played battledore-and-shuttlecock with 
allegorism and precision of statement in constructing 
his monstrosity of a Trinity in which a son was as old as 
his Father, and in which a second was equal to a first. 
Of course, any doctrine whatever could be constructed 
by admitting the validity of symbolism as far as it suits, 
and wherever it does not, in insisting on precise state- 
ment; but the result is only a house of cards; no one 
ever raised himself by pulling on his boot-straps. 

From ethnology, psychology, sociology, history, and 
linguistics, therefore comes the overwhelming conviction 
that punning as an element of religious progress was un- 
avoidable, and that our duty is not to decry it, but to 
profit by it for our own future guidance. 



12 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 

C. THE EEMEDY FOE HUMOEOUSNESS OF EE- 

LIGIOUS PEOGEESS 
L THE PEEVENTIVE VALUE OF HISTOEY 

Full recognition of the imperfections and misfortunes 
of our religious linguistic religious heritage; nay, even 
clear realization of their unavoidableness, should not con- 
demn us to them ; but rather put us on our mettle to im- 
prove thereby. 

Here it is that we realize the supreme cultural value 
of history. The modern tendency to relegate it to the 
rubbish-room may perhaps have been dictated by a feel- 
ing that the mere deeds of ancient times are of no practi- 
cal value for our daily lives. This, however, is a real 
error; for it is the only compass we have as to whether 
any particular proposed reform is not a recrudescence, 
or ancient mistake. Indeed, we sometimes wonder why 
ancient errors long since exploded and pilloried, are zeal- 
ously advocated afresh. The only cause is that the well- 
meaning advocates are sufficiently guiltless of history 
sincerely to think they have made a discovery; and then 
the whole personal struggle and laborious demonstration 
has to be gone through with once more to prove it a 
mare's nest. These recrudescences are natural enough, 
but when they interfere with real progress, then it is a 
real crime to withdraw from children the compass of his- 
tory to sanify, warn them from recrudescences and direct 
them to real progress. Of course, ultimately, these ex- 
ploded recrudescences will by the improvement of human- 
ity decay. But as children will ever be impressionable 
and be born uninstructed, and as crowds will ever more 
or less permit the less developed to sway the more en- 
lightened, and as there will ever be persons less cultured 
and disciplined than others, it must be evident that the 
conditions for the recrudescence of error are practically 
unlimited. 









LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 13 

Besides, the whole trend of medicine, for example, is 
from curative to preventive methods ; * an ounce of pre- 
vention is worth a pound of cure. ' More emphasis, there- 
fore, on preventive history-study is bound to be ulti- 
mately laid; and God speed that happy day. 

II. THE PREVENTIVE METHOD 

When, therefore, we are met by a novel proposition, or 
a new teaching, we are in duty bound to ask whether it 
is dawn or dusk, the precursor of light or darkness. Is 
it a survival, or a revelation? Is its glow a belated 
Alpengluehen, a farewell to the sun, or the first greeting 
to the coming day? 

These questions can be answered only by an appeal 
to history. For an alleged revealed information from 
an actual divinity, legitimately claiming our belief, must 
be, in the first place, different from their contempora- 
neous beliefs. If it is similar to them, it is only a con- 
firmation ; and if it is a confirmation of principles that are 
immoral, degrading, and evidently early steps of de- 
velopment, then it is a mistaken divinity that would re- 
veal it. 

Second, a divine revelation should be suitable to its 
subject. For instance, it has frequently been pointed out 
that in certain religions the more extraordinary a mir- 
acle was, the more easily it seems to be introduced and 
received, and the less external testimony it has. Evi- 
dently, therefore, the less trustworthy it is. 

Again, the more serious and far-reaching the subject, 
the less should the revelation be precise ; yet in such sub- 
jects as death and resurrection the most stupendous 
claims as to reanimation and futurity of events have been 
made with the most assurance. 

Once more such revelations should be consistent with 
that of others and with itself ; and it is notorious that the 
revelation of hardly any one prophet has agreed with 
that of any other, or has even been self -consistent on 
careful scrutiny. In short, we should suspect as much 
over-certainty as uncertainty. 



14 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 



Third, a divine revelation should not— cannot — depend 
from mistakes in derivation, in false etymologies, in lin- 
guistic errors. After all, the dictionary is the ultimate 
Savior of humanity; and when its resources are, as a 
searchlight, applied to an alleged revelation, we may find 
that this strange light may be but an untranslated word, 
perhaps the same light we have already had in some 
slightly differing form. 

III. THE PEOCESS OF OBLIVION 

The greatest value of history lies then in its being an 
antidote to the world-wide stream of oblivion which, just 
as surely as gravitation, rules all human races and events. 
It is the condition of improvements. Monkeys and insane 
people cannot be hypnotized or improved for lack of at- 
tention and memory; and history is only a specialized, 
perfected form of this elementary faculty. 

So history teaches us that this stream of oblivion is re- 
sponsible for the growth of many religious doctrines. 

1. For instance, there was a time (among the Jews for 
instance), when it was a common belief that all men were 
Sons of God. By the operation of oblivion this was 
gradually forgotten, but the claim was, for personal rea- 
sons, retained for a certain individual. Ultimately, this 
individual was looked upon as an unique personality, dif- 
ferent from his fellow-beings, and exclusively divine. 

2. There was, again, a time when resurrections were 
commonly accepted as worthy of belief. The Old Testa- 
ment was full of them ; and resurrections far more mar- 
velous and immediate than any claimed later. Indeed, 
the possibility thereof was a popular belief, as evidenced 
by Herod's asking whether Jesus was John returned to 
life. Then the time came when all these were denied and 
ignored, except in the case of one particular individual, 
leaving him ultimately as the exclusive alleged teacher, 
champion and pathfinder thereof. 

Yet history will remind us, in case we reject this Jew- 
ish belief, that Celsus objected to Christianity, that the 



LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 15 

resurrection of Jesug was neither a novelty nor a proof 
of anything, seeing the pagans believed in the resurrec- 
tions of Zamolxis, (Herod. 4.95) Pythagoras, Bhamp- 
sinitus (Herod. 2.22), Orpheus (Diod. iv) Protesilaos, 
Hercules and Theseus (Orig. c. Cels. 2.54), besides Diony- 
sus, Osiris, Attis, Persephone, Eurydice, and many more, 
These had by the Christians to be denounced as fables, 
but their assertions about Jesus met the same accusation; 
and Jesus' resurrection has probative value only for the 
modern peoples who have dismissed all other mythologi- 
cal resurrections to the realm of fable. Hence it stands 
alone, now-a-days, and possesses a dignity and unique- 
ness due only to ignorance of the past contemporary be- 
liefs, whose fate, logically, it should have shared. An in- 
structive case in point are the OT resurrections which 
the Christians do not deny, but studiously ignore. 

But we have yet a further proof about resurrection, 
It is revealed as a survival, since ethnology tells us, that 
in the early days of f etichism and fairy stories abounded 
resurrections more marvelous than Tertullian's from 
teeth; from drops of blood, or even from tears. Evi- 
dently, the trend of evolution is from fetichism to scien- 
tific ascertainment of death; and any claim of resurrec- 
tion two milleniums ago can be little else than a belated 
survival. And the sooner survivals are shaken off, the 
faster will be the rate of progress and civilization. 

3. Again, when we consider the primitive customs of 
cannibalism, and the drinking of blood in the sealing of 
friendship, none of us would wish to have our civilization 
return to them. We might say with some assurance that 
there will be none to deny that these are shameful rudi- 
ments of which humanity blushes. And yet even in our 
day there are teachers blatantly claiming to be ahead of 
the progress of times who practice and teach a ceremony 
or rite consisting of eating bread and wine that are said 



16 LINGUISTIC ROOT OF THEOLOGY 



to be the flesh and blood of an individual man. Is there 
need of even asking whether this is a revelation, or a sur- 
vival ? And if it is a survival, is it not a brutalizing one ? 
There is perhaps no greater proof of the weakness of our 
modern civilization than that such survivals have not 
been sufficiently unmasked to end them. 

4. Last, we may be sure that allegorical language, 
except in the field of poetry and oratory, is doomed. Of 
course, science, in spite of all its advances, will ever find 
problems so large that it will be forced to employ tempor- 
ary allegorical language, or hypotheses. But no scientist 
will forget that it is but a crutch, a scaffold, to be torn 
down at the earliest possible moment. 

The trouble, however, has been that fanatics have laid 
hold on such temporary expedients as permanent doc- 
trine and revealed truth, and have allowed their sincer- 
ity to pass as demonstration. How often have the mar- 
tyrs of early Christianity been paraded as proofs of the 
truth of some doctrine. But has history not taught that 
martyrs have existed in all religions, at different times? 

And indeed, the most pathetic of all is that so many 
martyrs have died (and lived — for sometimes a martyr's 
life is more trying than a sudden death) for doctrines 
demonstrated grammatical mistakes a few years later. 
Martyrdom, apart from the questions of moral rectitude, 
is folly; and the great medicine for that insanity is the 
dictionary, the grammar, the contemporary literature, 
archeology; anthropology, and history. 

Let us then hail as the religion of the future the re- 
ligion of the dictionary and grammar: accuracy, thor- 
oughness, logic; these three exercised in the field of 
knowledge by education. 

THE END 



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CHAPTER L 

TOLERATION. 
A ZOROASTRIAN PLEA. 

However powerful tolerance may grow, it will never 
cease to be needed until there is an end of Ignorance. 
"To know all, is to forgive all," is the French proverb; 
for ignorance raises the barrier of lack of interest, of 
sympathy, of participation, until our neighbor becomes 
to us strange and competitive. But in an age of competi- 
tion, a rival is an enemy ; a worshipper of different gods 
is a follower of false gods, and if this becomes ever so 
little self-assertive, paganism converts our holy zeal for 
our own sacred things into crusading fervor for conver- 
sion, or torture, or destruction of the godless, and we 
shall, besides, consider we are doing them a favor, as Tor- 
quemada did, in saving their souls in spite of them- 
selves. 

Such are the fatal effects of ignorance, and it is not to 
be wondered at that such religious persecution could ex- 
ist while the barriers of language were insuperable to the 
greater portion of mankind. No wonder the world wit- 
nessed the mutual struggle for Buddha, for Messiah, for 
Christ, for Kung-Teng, — simply because they did not 
know they were working for the same Anointed in four 
different languages. So the Christian calls the Zoroas- 
trian, and old Arabian, a pagan, simply because he ig- 
nores that his saviour, Jesus, is Hebrew for Pahlavi 
saviour Sayoshant-Sraosha, or Yemen Arabian Yathaa, 
for the Jain Tirthankara, or the Hindu Kalki, or the 
Babylonian Silik-Mulu-Dug, or Phoenician Eshmun, or 
Greek Soter, or Jain Jina. 



2 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

Christians look on the Hellenic worships as paganism 
simply because they do not realize their "Father in 
Heaven " sounded to the Greek, Zeus-pater; to the Bo- 
man, Jupiter, and to the Hindu, Dyaus-pitar, to (the 
Buddhist loka-pita, to the Chinese, loving father, Tsing- 
tu-wan, to the Phrygian, Attys (Frazer). Nay, when he 
is in the fervor of inspiration of the Holy Ghost, he 
needs the sanifying guidance of a dictionary to show him 
that the Zoroastrian prophet was inspired by the same 
Spentamainyu ; the Egyptian by Knef . 

The greatest, nay, the only general, eternal and ef- 
fective missionary is the grammar and dictionary. This 
is the sacred hope of the race, that will bring more peace 
to humanity than all combined cannon and arbitration; 
for where interest and love are, there is no need of rules 
and compulsion. Tolerance, indeed, will do as a stop- 
gap; but it is never more than that. Let Christian, Jew, 
Buddhist and Chinese tolerate each other as much as they 
please, there will never be an end of scorn, foreignness 
and disunited action till they all not merely know, but 
realize that though they speak in different languages, 
they worship the same divinity. 

There is no doubt that a universal language would 
do more for the peace of humanity than a century of 
peace-conferences. The fetishes of nationality are still 
being kept up. But it would no doubt be a great loss 
to the world to be deprived of the rich modern idioms ; 
nor need they be given up, — only each man will have to 
learn those of other races beside his own. A man who 
knows no language but his own is in the position of a 
troglodite, a savage, — and what is more, a fanatic. With 
all our boasted progress, psychology is in its infancy, as 
a science. Religion has just begun to compare the facts 
from its different phases. The time will come when a 
man will be compelled to know all religions, as to-day he 
recognizes he belongs to a federation of states. He is 






LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 3 

none the less a good citizen for that. Indeed, no man can 
be an ideal citizen, free from sectional prejudice, until 
he recognizes as his nation the world. So in religion ; not 
until a man shall sympathize with all human attitudes 
towards God, will he be able to enjoy to the utmost each 
benefit of his own religion. 

This essay would blaze the way for what the writer 
believes will in future centuries be the universal rule : a 
clear grasp of the fact that all religions are separated by 
no more than their respective languages, and that a mis- 
sionary enterprise is, after all is said and done, no more 
than the spread of a particular language. The Chris- 
tian missionary has to make his Chinese convert a Jew 
Messiah-believer before he can present him his Christ- 
Messiah Jesus, and the name " Jesus' ' carries with it the 
Hebrew, as Buddha the Hindu, and Sraosha the Pahlavi. 
Well does Goethe in "Faust" speak of human self-de- 
ception about words — we have become such that we sup- 
pose a man (like Browning, for instance,) necessarily 
meant something, or had a lucid idea, when he piled up 
vocables into a fortress with turrets and moat. Men 
will die to spread words; and, alas, how many will live 
amidst, and for no more than, words ! The time will come 
when education such as this paper attempts to hint at, 
will be so advanced that all men will feel their brother- 
hood in their varying religions, and when they will be 
able to do this without losing that color and aroma that 
gathers around the names of each different language. 
However much Messiah, Christ, Buddha and Kung-Teng 
mean the same, each has during thousands of years 
gathered such an individual crown of shining saints, that 
the words never will, nor ever should die. 

Nevertheless, until this ideal condition arises, the 
words that meant something in their own language should 
temporarily be translated into English, so as to make on 
English-speaking people the same effect, (or as near it as 



4 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

possible,) as on their own worshippers. This would be 
especially appropriate with Zoroastrianism which, as a 
protest against earlier unintelligible faiths, created a 
purposely intelligible Goodness of God, personfied in six 
virtues or archangels, Holy Immortal Ones, under the 
leadership of the Savior (Sraosha:) 1, Truth, (Ashem- 
vahishta;) 2, Good Sense, (vohu-mano;) 3, Power 
(kshathra;) 4, Piety, (armaiti;) 5, Perfection, (haurva- 
tat;) and 6, Immortality, (ameretat.) 

Doubtless such translations may be inaccurate, — in- 
deed, must nowadays yet be inaccurate, and should ever 
be accompanied by a reminder of probably future revi- 
sion. But, in this case at least, a religion which was cre- 
ated for the direct purpose of being intelligible, must T)e 
rendered in intelligible terms, and not by puzzling, terri- 
fying fetishes, which are exactly what its mission was to 
destroy. If Zarathustra had lived to know of English, he 
would have used the English rather than .the Pahlavi, 
which now is a dead language. Hence in this case at 
least, we are not merely permitted but forced to use the 
English terms. 

While Zoroastrianism was probably the most self- 
consciously reasonable religion, it may be doubted 
whether at any time a reformer or savior purposely in- 
troduced incomprehensible fetishes. All religions, how- 
ever fossilized ultimately, were once young, and arose as 
reforms against some pre-existing, more or less incom- 
prehensible, and hence unresponsive, inefficient, out- 
grown, form of worship. Hence it is fair to presume that 
in their purest period at least, the religions which are 
now the most formalized and ritualized, sought, if un- 
consciously, some such intelligibility as Zarathustra pur- 
posely introduced, and which is here suggested ; — namely, 
the using of English terms for all significant names.^ 

However much we may dream of future conditions 
when all men shall clearly understand the sacred terms 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 5 

of foreign religions, there are two great facts staring us 
in the face to-day. First, a number of well-meaning en- 
thusiasts who use numerous Sanskrit names they neither 
understand or use properly. It was by just such allegori- 
cal use of misunderstood terms that Apollos (?) in 
Hebrews (ix, 9, 10,) by a pun, made of a contract (dia- 
theke) a (diatheke) last will and testament, wherefrom 
arose much unfortunate medieval vicarious atonement. 
Second, the great majority of the modern public does not 
associate the meanings with these foreign terms. Hence, 
as a necessary evil to attain the greater good of an im- 
mediate just valuation of these foreign religions by the 
public generally, translations of the scriptures of the 
Hebrews and other nations should represent all signif- 
icant and ascertained names by their English meaning. 
The appearance of a f oreign term should ultimately cause 
a blush, as a confession of ignorance — however unavoid- 
able this may be to-day, in consequence of the present im- 
perfect state of philology. 



6 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 



CHAPTER II. 
MEANING OF FOREIGN SACRED TERMS. 

As a slight practical contribution to the above sug- 
gestion, we give here a number of the more common 
terms of (to us) foreign religions. 

EGYPTIAN. 

Amun means the concealed, unseen divinity. Joined 
with Ra, the Sun God, it suggested, no doubt, the unseen 
behind the seen. Khem was the generative principle of 
nature, and was called Kamuft, bull of his mother. Knef 
meant Spirit, nef, (for Holy Spirit, see Wilkinson Anc. 
Eg. 4, 236). Knef was the divine spirit forming the 
scheme of creation ; and as moving upon the face of the 
waters, presided over inundations, and created sun and 
moon. He appears as potter at wheel, as procreating 
ram. Pthah was the more vulgar creator, Hephaistos. 
Osiris was only a form of Ra, the sun, during the night 
and winter, king and judge of Hades, or Amenti. His 
was a universal worship, — he was represented with crook 
and whip. 

Neith or Net, Truth, of Sais (Athene,) was female 
Khem, goddess of celestial space, kin to Hathor, of war 
and weaving. 

There were besides Ra and Osiris many more sun 
gods; Shu, the solar light; Aten, the sun's disk; Atum, 
the setting sun ; Hor-Harmachis, the rising sun ; Khepra, 
the life-giving sun, and Mentu, a provincial sun. Athor, 
a kosmegenic Venus, was mother of Ra; and Isis (Uasi) 
was the feminine phase of Uasar-Osiris. Khnum was 
the divine solar breath. 

Lunar gods were Khons, the full moon, and Thoth, a 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 7 

lunar god of letters, bearing the crescent representiiig 
thought. Maut, wife of Ammon, was the great mother 
of the gods ; Sati, wife of Kneph, a Juno. Sekhet, wife 
of Phthah, lion or cat-headed, infernal mistress; Seb, 
time or Saturn; Harahar (onuris,) Mars. Nebta or 
Nephthys, sister of Osiris and Isis, the lower firmament. 
Ma, goddess of Truth. Nut, the vault of heaven. 

There were many other gods ; and such as Ampu, Anu- 
bis, jackal-headed guardian of the dead; Hapi-Neilos, the 
sacred river, and Hapi-Apis, the sacred bull. Set or 
Sutech was Typhon, the enemy of Osiris, dark or cold. 
Bes, the god of death ; Apepe, the great serpent slain by 
Horus. Osar sip was the Osiris of the underworld. Moses 
may have been derived from a word meaning Freer, 
Drawer-out. Ter meant the little idol buried with the 
mummy. 

BABYLONIA. 

The chief ancient divinity was in Assyria Asshur, the 
Supreme, Asaru, the upper expanse, and in Babylonia, El 
or Ea, more shadowy, but in close touch with the personal 
names of the people, (El, Allah.) The great triad is Anu, 
Anos, Heaven and Time, "Ancient of Days," Father; 
Bel, Baal, active ruler of world-power ; and Hea, Aos, Or, 
Oannes, sun of life, lord of wisdom, mind. The next 
triad is Sinu, male moon-god, father of Shamash ; Sham- 
ash, Shemesh, Sol, the sun, also called Dion-nisi, judge 
of men, Hellenic Dionysos; last, Vul, or Iva, Jav, Bin, 
Yem, Rahman, Eimmon, air god, warrior, Jupiter 
Tonans, of storms ; rain god, and fertility-giver. 

Anu's wife was Anatu. Bel's, Beltis, Bilat, Mylitta; 
the great mother of the gods, the Cybele of the Phry- 
gians, the Bhea of the Greeks, the Magna Mater or Bona 
Dea of the Eomans. She is also warlike. Hea's wife is 
Dau-Kina, queen of Hades, soother of the dying, or 
Ninazu; Sin's wife is the Great Lady; Shamas's is Gula 
or Anunit, a female sun. Jav's wife is Shala or Tala, 
Sarrat, queen. 



8 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

The planets were presided over by special divinities. 
Saturn's was Nin or Bar, the Assyrian Hercules, warrior 
and hunter, represented by the cherubs, man-bulls. Jupi- 
ter's was Merodach, specially Babylonian, warrior mes- 
senger of Hea, to whom was dedicated the eighth month, 
Marchesvan, who fought and overcame Tiamat, Tauthe, 
his serpent opponent of evil or chaos. Wife, Zirpanit. 

Mars's was Nergal the warrior and hunter, and over- 
shadower even of Nin; symboled by the human-headed 
wined lion. Wife, Laz. 

Venus ? s was Ishtar, Nana of the Babylonians, Astarte 
of the Phoenicians, who was rejected by Izdubar, and 
went into hell and returned. She was Queen of Victory, 
the Virgo zodiacal constellation, the sixth month, Elul, 
was sacred to her. 

Mercury's was Nebo, Nabu, intelligent, wise teacher, 
minister. Wife, Urmit. 

Then there are Makhir, goddess of dreams ; Paku, the 
divine messenger ; Zicum, a primeval mother of Anu and 
the gods; or Sukku. 

There was Abzu, Apason, the primeval wisdom or 
abyss; Kisare, the lower expanse; Lakhmu, cosmic force; 
wife, Lakhamu. 

Last, Du-mu-zi, Tammuz, Sun of life, sun dying in 
winter and night. 

Silik-mulu-dug was the Jesus, the helper, the Savior. 
Megh was the divine messenger. 

ZOEOASTEIANISM. 

The Zend-Avesta (interpretation of Avesta text,) is 
the bible of Spitama Zarathustra, or "writing whose 
camels are old or fierce," living in W. Iran near Lake 
Urumyah (Atropatem and Medici,) 660-583 B. C. He 
taught the doctrine of Ahura Mazda, the Lord-wisdom 
Sraosha the Savior, and Spentamainyu, the Holy Spirit. 
From him emanated the six Ameshaspentas, the Holy 
Immortal Ones, Asha-vahishta, truth; Vohu-mano, good 






LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 9 

sense; Khshathra-vairya, power; Spenta-armaiti, piety, 
earth; Haurvatat, perfect health ; Ameretat, immortality. 
Ahura Mazda was relegated to supremacy later, and 
Sraosha took his place with the Ameshaspentas. Mithras 
the sun- god, was sometimes identified with him, the "un- 
conquered." With this group were the Yazatas or wor- 
shipful ones, Ashi-vamuhe, good piety; the sister of 
Sraosha, obedience; Kashnu, justice; and Mithra, truth. 
The Fravashis meant "confession of faith,' ? embodied in 
the book of life, "dathra-iterus," "ishudo." The Fra- 
vashis, from being ancestor spirits came to be guardian 
angels ; the Izeds were the angels between these and the 
Ameshaspentas. 

Opposed to Ahura Mazda was Angramainyu, the 
black spirit, captain of seven druks, or destroyers, false 
ones; Aeshma-daeva, the Asmodeus of Tobit, deceiving, 
rapine-loving demon ; Indra of storms ; Saurva or Agni, 
fire; Naonhaitya, Taric, thirst; Zaric, penury, Druvis. 
Under these leaders fought the evil daevas, against the 
ahuras with Sraosha, the savior, at their head. 

Originally sacrificing horses, (white preferably,) but 
also oxen, sheep and goats, later the Haoma juice was 
pressed by seven priests, the chief one called Nestri, by 
the baresma, or twigs, and caught in vials, Samudra, and 
burnt in the fire. 

Purity and truth were the key-words of this religion, 
and their sacred prayer the "Ahuna-vairya." 

Zahah was the serpent king of Baori, who expelled 
Adam Yuma or Jemshid from paradise and was him- 
self overcome afterwards. 

Zoroaster left three seeds whence will arise leaders 
who will help to usher in the millenium after both good 
and bad powers have each ruled 3000 years. They are 
Humata or Ukshyatereta, Irjight thinking; Hukhta or 
Ukhshyatnema, right words; and Hvareshta or Sayo- 
shant, astwata ereta, right deeds. 



10 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

The Gathas or Psalms, are the most ancient parts of 
the sacred books, and are found among the Yasna, or 
liturgies. Vispered, another section of the Avesta-oand- 
Zend (Text and Commentary) means "all the chief s." 
The third section is the Vendidad, (law for) "enemies of 
the devil." The Kordah Avesta, the fourth, is the "lit- 
tle Avesta." 

Darius, in Phrygian, meant wise. 

VEDIC INDIA. 

The only god common to India and Iran was Mitra, 
the light god. The Hindus were a Turanic race between 
whom and the Iranians strife had arisen; so that the 
ahuras, Iranian angels, were Hindu asuras or demons; 
while Iranian demon-daevas were Hindu devas or divini- 
ties. Varuna (Greek Ouranos) meant the sky; Mitra, 
the sun ; an Indra, the storm, from indu, drop ; Zeus Om- 
broos, Jupiter Pluvius. Next is Agni, fire, (ignis,) with 
Eudra, a variant. Next is Dyaus, the heaven, Surya or 
Savitri, the sun; Soma, the moon; Ushas, the dawn, 
(Eos;) Prithur, the earth; Vayu, the gentle wind; Ay, 
the waters; Nadi, the rivers; and Martus, the storms, 
(Ares, Mars). So there are Aditi, the infinite mother of 
the luminous gods ; Aryaman, a variant of Mithra. The 
Asuras are the two sons of the sun, Aswa, the Dioskouroi. 
Pushan is a solar variant. Tvashtri is the solar worker, 
Hephaistos. Vishnu, the sun as "striding" over the 
heavens, and Yama is the setting sun, lord of the under- 
world. 

The Soma (asclepia acida) was no doubt connected 
with the dispossessed lunar worship. Prayer, praise and 
offerings of clarified butter, honey and soma- juice, were 
used at the sacrifice, at which priests presided, strewing 
the room with sacred kusa or rushes, singing Mantras or 
hymns, which no doubt gradually formed the Rig- Veda, 
meaning Collection of Knowledge. The god they ad- 
dressed was the Brahmanaspati, the lord of prayer; 






LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 1 1 

Dharma, truth, or Justice; the divine Messenger, Maha 
(Agni Matarisvan). The coming Savior was Kalki; the 
Brahm is variously rendered Spirit, Word, or Holy Spirit 
(Eucha). 

The Huns derive their name from Hyun-des, snow- 
land, corresponding to Himalaya, Imaus, Emaus. Yama 
is death. 

BUDDHISM. 

Like the Hebrews, the Buddhists have a divine chariot 
of enlightenment ; Mahayana, the greater, and Hinayana, 
the lesser. They also use the expression treasures of 
Dharma, norm or truth, contained in three sacred Pitakas 
or baskets. The first contains the vinaya, canon law, 
"guidance ;" the second sutra or thread contains khan- 
dakas or treatises; the third, abidhamma, or expansion. 
The Ceylon Maha Vansa, is the great chronicle. Among 
its treatises are the Theratheri gatha, "Song of Elders," 
and "udana," or ecstatic utterances. 

Dhammapadam, Hymns of the Faith; Hivuthakam, 
Logia book; Jatakam, Birth Stories. He taught the 
Prashna Paramita, meaning Wisdom-tradition (from be- 
yond the Himalayas, from Bactria, Scythia, Shakya). 

Gautama seems to have been a family name ; he lived 
527 (?) B. C. in Kapilavastu, the capital of the Shakyas. 
Shakya-muni, means sage of the Shakyas ; Shakya-minha, 
lion of the Shakyas; Buddha, anointed or enlightener; 
Tathagata, He who should come ; Siddartha, prince, from 
Sarvartha-siddha, the fulfilment of every wish; he was 
a shramana, or ascetic for a period. Other titles were 
Bhagavat, the Sublime, the blessed Tathagata, the Com- 
| ing One, the Perfected. Dschina, the victorious (over 
Mara). Sugata, the Welcome. Bodhisattva, the Aspir- 
ant to the Buddhahood. 

His cousin-disciple Ananda, was his beloved one. 
"The Heavenly Father' ' is loka pita. Bodhi, wisdom; 
Amitabha, boundless light. 



12 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

During Gautama's desert experience he met the 
tempter Mara, death. Airdya, great ignorance, arupam. 

JAIN. 
The Jain Coming One was Tirthankara; parpo, 
purity ; arhat, saint. The crooked cross, among the Hin- 
dus swastika, has among the Jains many names; su 
(well), asti (so it is, amen. Hebrew amun, Egyptian); 
parpo (purity) ; taosse ; ter ; musteg. 

GREECE. 

The Olympic divinities were twelve, not divided in 
pairs. Zeus, the sky, the father, of whom we are the off- 
spring, Acts xvii, 28; in whom we live, move and have 
our being; the father of the constellation, Gen. i, 14; 
called Wonderful, Is. ix, 6; the First and last, Rev. i, 8, 
11 ; Help and Shield. Ps. xviii, 2 ; xlvi, 1. Poseidon is 
the sea. Apollo, an original god later applied to the sun, 
poetry, music, inspiration and healing ; he is striker-af ar, 
angel of death, judge as well as god of victory, — a Son 
of God, declaring the will of God to man. Ares, passion- 
ate war-god. Hephaestus, god of fire, and worker, lame- 
ness, cause of ridicule, jester. Hermes, commercial, of 
wealth, invention, deceit, messenger, giver of comforts; 
learning, wisdom, invention, a busy liar, who exchanged 
with Apollo his lyre for a caduceus. 

Hera (Era the earth,) became the female Zeus, god- 
dess of maternity, proud, jealous, bitter. Athene, war, 
wisdom, polity, industrial art, the Mentor of Telemachus. 
Artemis, reflection of Apollo, the moon, pure, chaste, a 
minister of death, archer; presiding at births. At Ephe- 
sus she took the place of Mother of the Gods, Cybele, 
Rhea, Magna Mater Beltis, Mylitta. Aphrodite is pas- 
sionate love, physical beauty, mentally childish, morally 
odious; at home in Cyprus. Hestia presided over the 
hearth, holy and virginally pure. Demeter was the earth- 
mother, (Maut, Beltis, Cybele,) patron of agriculture; 
as Thesmophorus, civilizer, law-giver. Her rites, the 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 13 

Eleusinian, were the greatest, combining nature with law 
and order. Her daughter, Persephone, stolen from her 
was queen of the dead, husband of Hades, "the unseen.' ' 
Dionysus, the foreign "judge of men" had five different 
characters and represented a Greek adaptation of an 
Eastern god, — passed sentence on the departed and, in 
Greece, became god of intoxication. Lete (Latona,) is 
model of motherly love and wifely purity, and silent. 

The Greeks had adopted from Sanskrit gods ; — Zeus- 
Dyaus; Ares-Maruts; Helios-Surya; and Eos (subordi- 
nate here)-Ushas. (Roman, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Aurora.) 
Ahana (dawn) appeared as Athene. Sanskrit epithets 
were Dyava Mater, — Demeter ; Yavistha, Hephaistos ; 
Duhita Divah, Aphrodite. Varouna was adopted as Our- 
anos. Agni as the physical Ignis in Rome; and the 
Mithras mysteries under the Empire spread all over 
Rome. Against the four Hindu gods, Greece took six 
Semitic divinities; Asklepios, Dionysus, Kronos, Posei- 
don, Aphrodite, Hephaistus; leaving as purely Greek 
only Apollo, Hermes, Hera, Athene, the shadowy lunar 
Artemis, and more shadowy Hestia and Latona. The 
pure Greek gods were shadowy and receded behind adop- 
tive divinities. 

The natural divinities lingered long as nymphs, the 
Oreads of mountains, (Hama-) dryads, of trees, Nereids, 
of springs and waters. 

PHOENICIA. 

The Phoenicians worshipped one god under the names 
El the strong, Eliun, the Most High, Melek-Zadik, (Mo- 
loch,) king of righteousness; Baal-benth and -samim, lord 
of treaties and heaven and Melekquereth, the Hercules 
of the city. Adoni, meant my Lord. 

Eshmun was the healer, and in Greece appeared as 
Asklepius. This may have been the name applied to 
the Babylonian Tammuz. They also worshipped Sham- 
ash, the sun, and Dagon or Hea, Oannes, the Man Fish, 



14 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

the lord of the underworld. 

They worshipped Melchizedek as Sibut (Sabaoth) 
the seven kabeirum, the Great Ones, gods of sailors ; but 
at Samothrace they appeared as four: Axieros (Demeter, 
Zeus, Pothos, Divinity;) Axiokersos (Hades, Dionysus, 
Phaeton, Jupiter, Heaven, active life powers;) Axio- 
kerse, (Persephone, Aphrodite, Juno, Earth, passive 
life-power;) and Karmilos (Hermes, Minerva, ideas or 
thought.) Eshmun, the healer or savior of Beirut, 
(Sraosha, the archangel Jeshua, Jesus,) was the name 
Tammuz was known by. 

Baltis, originally only the female aspect of Baal, com- 
bined all the female goddesses (Beltis, Ishtar, Gula, Zir- 
banit,) as Ashtoreth. 

Prominent among their gods was the Babylonian Jau, 
known as Iao, the "mysterious" (Arabian moon god,) 
the same as Dionysus, only-begotten, the sun-god of 
autumn and evening, also called Aion (movers,) or eter- 
nal; evidently the judge of the underworld, like Osiris- 
Adonis- Adonai. He is also called the seven-fold, Sibut, 
the highest god, and Demiurg. He was worshipped by 
the Samaritans along with the Hebrew Jahve, and is 
noticed frequently by the church fathers. 

HEBEEW. 

The word Kabalistic is sufficient, generally, to make 
one feel uncanny; yet Qabalah means only received tradi- 
tion, the same in ordinary meaning as the Buddhist Para- 
mita. The word Talmud means teaching or learning; 
Targum, Ezra iv, 7, an interpretation ; Mischnah, the spe- 
cial instruction of some teacher; Mas\ordh, Ez. xx, 37, 
was the orthodox standard of recognized interpretation, 
literally "fetter" on private, wilful, heretical exegesis. 
The Halacha are (Eabbinic) discussions; hagada, ethical 
parables. 

NEW TESTAMENT. 

So also the New Testament characters seem to us to 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 15 

have distinct names; yet the Apostles ' names meant to 
them only Supplanter, (James, Jacob;) Hearing Stone 
(Simon Peter;) Horse-lover (Philip;) God's gift, (Na- 
thanael;) God is gracious, (John;) Manly, (Andrew;) 
Praised, (Judas;) Twin, (Thomas;) Gift of Jehovah, 
(Matthew, Matthias;) Son of Learning (Bartholomew). 
So also we have Stone (Caiaphas ;) Son of the Father, 
(Barabbas;) Little or Asked, (Paul or Saul). 

JESUS. 

Ages of worship have made men feel a personal rela- 
tion to the man Jesus ; and yet that had, for years, been 
the name of the chief angel of God, the Metatron Jeshua, 
or Savior, Helper, found in Is. lxiii, 8, 9, and Kev. i, 1, 
and on account of which recognized uses it was given to 
the child, Mt. 1, 21; much as the Irish frequently give 
their children the name Michael, which indeed was at that 
very time partly used as a synonym to the angel-chief, 
Jeshua. 

AEABIAN. 

Ancient Arabian Yemen divinities (Lenormant,) were 
just as interesting; Bil-Eahman, merciful; Yathaa, 
Savior; Haubas, shining; Samah, elevated; Simidan, 
powerful; Dhamar, protector. 

MOHAMMEDAN, 
The word Muhammad or Ahmad means Praised, De- 
sired, the Quran means only reading, in Surah 95, and 
Jer 36. 10 ; 51.63, etc., as qara. 

CHINESE. 
Confucius (Kung-fu-tseu) meant tseu, son, title of a 
noble who had attained majority; fu, teacher; Kung, 
family name. Lao-tsze meant old boy, old son, old philo- 
sopher. Kung-teng, the Coming Messiah. God, loving 
Father, Tsing-tu-wan ; another name for "God, the per- 
fect King." (Taoist) "Yue-Wang-Shang-Ti." Ti, is 
heaven or God. The Taoist divinity is that of the "Three 



16 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

pure (or) holy Ones." 

Shi King, 588 B. C, means, "ancient poem book;" 
Yih King, book of changes. Li-King, book of rites. Lun 
Yu, Discourses and Dialogues. Ta-chwang-yen, the 
Buddhist Lala Vistara, the Great Magnificence. Con- 
fucian books are the Analects or Gatherings; the Great 
Learning, the Way of the Mean. There is the T-aoist 
Shan-Hsien-Chwan, Accounts of Spirits and Immortals, 
Tao, the Way, Virtue, Eeason, the Word; so that the 
Tao-teh-King means the Book of the Way and Virtue. 

LOED. 

Likewise the Christian, who addressed God as Lord, 
will no more scorn the Greek for worshipping Kurios, the 
Hebrew for worshipping Adonai, Baal (Jer. 3.14; Is. 
54.5), the Phoenicians for worshipping Baal and Ado- 
nis; the Philistine for worshipping Marna; the Assyrio- 
Babylonian for worshipping Bel ; the Arabian, for wor- 
shipping Dhu; the Parsee for worshipping Ahura; or 
marvel at the Siva worshipper's Ishvara, the Indra wor- 
shipper's Shakra. 

It will not be uninteresting, in view of the prejudice 
against the Canaanitic baal worship, to remember that 
baal is translated in the AV by captain Jer 37, 13 ; chief, 
Lev. 21.4; dominion, Is. 26.13; given, Eccl. 8.8; great, 
Prov. 18.9 ; have, Is. 41.15 ; husband, Dt. 21.13 ; lord, Nu. 
21.18; man, Gen. 20.3; married, Dt. 22.22; marry, Mai. 
2.11 ; owner, Ex. 21.29 ; person, Prov. 24.8. It was only 
the common word by which every Jewish wife and slave 
addressed the husband and master. 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 17 



CHAPTER III 
URGENCY, UNAVOIDABLENESS, CONCLUSION. 

URGENCY. 

Before coming to our conclusion, it may be well to 
mention two things : namely, that the proposed change of 
religion to a linguistic basis is both necessary, and un- 
avoidable. 

The necessity of linguistic religion may be illustrated 
by not more than two minor instances, one from the Old 
Testament, and one from the New. 

Is it any wonder that critics and readers should be 
puzzled as to when a word is a name or a quality, when 
the Jews themselves were? Old Jewish Targums were 
uncertain as to whether there ever was a prophet by 
name of Malachi, or whether it meant merely Aug el- 
messenger, standing for Ezra, Zerubbabel, or Nehemiah. 
The reader is entitled to know the uncertainty. 

Twice (Acts 11.28, 21.10) does a prophet named Aga- 
bus come from Jerusalem to Antioch to meet Paul; the 
second time to warn him of imprisonment ; the first time 
to warn him of famine. What a liberator the linguistic 
method is ! There is no need of critic or commentator — 
the reader would draw his own conclusion as to the way 
the book was written when he learnt that the gentleman's 
name to his friends meant Mr. Famine. (Hagab,, 2 Chr. 
7.13 or Geb., Is 33.4, means locust, the symbol for famine 
Ex. 10, Joel 1.4, 2.25 So Drusius). So Simon Magus 
means Simon Wise-man; and Elymas Magus (Acts 13.8) 
means ^Mr. Wise-man Wise-man, the first in Arabic, the 
latter in Babylonian-Persian. 



18 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 



UNAVOIDABLENESS. 






Besides being urgent, this linguistic method is un- 
avoidable. In their zeal for their religions the names of 
God have been so multiplied that they have to their own 
races indubitably become mere qualities. These indeed 
are actually translated, the Common-Sense translation be- 
ing violence to their theories. So we have Buddhist, Mo- 
hammedan, and Christian-Hebrew lists of Divine names. 

CONCLUSION. 

In the familiar ground that has here been traversed, 
it will have become evident that, however different re- 
ligions may seem to be, it is the same humanity which, 
under the varying accidents of historic circumstances, 
used the simplest words available to express the unseen 
and the attributes of wisdom, justice, motherhood, beauty, 
courage, purity. It instituted endless reforms with these 
in view, until Zoroaster stripped off the last local linguis- 
tic, accidental element from divinity, and set it forth in 
its pure embodiments of virtues. It is time that learn- 
ing should undo the devastating work of war, which has 
antiquated the Pahlavi language, and once more present 
the divinity (as the French Eevolution did for a time,) 
stripped from all local and tribal associations. 

It will be noticed that the writer's effort has been to 
avoid all controversy as to the indebtedness of one re- 
ligion to another. Our data are insufficient, and can never 
become otherwise, in the first place ; and if they were suf- 
ficient, such a contention of dependence can never be 
demonstrated. Again, where personal interests are con- 
cerned, impossible proof is demanded. 

The writer is perfectly willing to shelter himself be- 
hind the great Church Apologists, — Clement of Alexan- 
dria and Justin Martyr, who both claimed that the 
Hebrew religion was the oldest in the world, from whom 



LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 19 

all others had copied, and that what pagan similarities 
did exist, were invented in advance by the devil, so as to 
oppose, (by similarity) the truth when it should come. 
Both of these inconsistent contentions will be granted, 
(the first, unhistorical ; the second, ridiculously puerile;) 
but it must be pointed out that priority in time and merit 
of invention are of no interest to the polyglot, or rather, 
dictionary-method here contended for, as all local, tribal 
and circumstantial elements disappear when the signifi- 
cance of words is considered and the moral value weighed. 
Let us grant Max Mueller's contention that unless we can 
tell exactly the time and place of the one individual who 
took over a doctrine known to thousands, — (as illogical 
as the above proposition,) we must call everything coin- 
cidence, even if in a later religion we find one illogical, 
meaningless parable which in an earlier religion appears 
as two different, clear, logical, useful and effective ones. 
Let it be all coincidence. But what does that matter, when 
the later as well as the earlier is judged by its value ? 

For instance, what is the use of elaborate arguments 
to debate whether Buddhist influences entered Judea, 
when we consider that the Jews were in the habit of 
anointing themselves at every meal, of anointing priests, 
prophets and kings, — nay, even shields. Would they not 
themselves have developed an Anointed, a Messiah, or a 
Christ? Do we need an external influence to name the 
gathered writings Book, as the Christians did, Reading, 
as Mohammedanism did, or Vehicle, as the Hebrews and 
Buddhists did, or Great Learning, as the Chinese? The 
titles that have ben handed down to us are probably only 
one out of every hundred used commonly. 

Among all the divine names, not a single one has oc- 
curred whose meaning was not, with tiresome regularity, 
so simple a child could invent it. Apparently the in- 
fluence of one nation on another has been no more than 
linguistic, — enforcing their vocable for the same, or a 
kindred idea. While this process may interest a philolo- 






20 LINGUISTIC DISGUISES OF UNIVERSAL RELIGION 

gist, it is of little moment to the religious, devout wor- 
shipper. When Christianity has "translated" itself into 
English, there will be nothing left to send missionaries 
about. It will express no more than every right-minded 
person believed, especially as in its case its names are 
general, and there is no external evidence. 

This method will almost be as great an innovation as 
Kepler's: to demonstrate that man was not made for 
religions, but religions for man: the center must be 
shifted. Feverish effort in missionary work shows there 
is somewhere an error that may be discovered. Truth 
will take care of itself, though it is man's duty to build for 
the future with foresight. Promotion of any form of 
worship is never of more than secondary importance to 
its present effectiveness ; yet both depend on each other, 
and should be held together. 

Nevertheless it is believed there is room for a new 
organization, — one that shall continue to enforce this 
polyglot religion and point out the linguistic element in 
all theologies. 

Future effort should surely be directed towards as- 
certaining the value each religion once represented to its 
votaries. Already contentions have begun to fade into 
social utilities, and it is hoped the day is not far dis- 
tant when religion will have left the infantile "you're an- 
other" stage and begun to gather facts so that they will 
be universally accessible, that each may draw his own 
conclusions and employ them to his own edification, 
moralization and sanctification. 

Then it will be seen how evolution has forced all great 
religions, in spite of themselves, to coexist in every part 
of the world. The next logical step will be when each 
man will be his own religion, but use practically that rec- 
ognized one which most promotes his own. 






Culmination 

of ptfclical Values? 

tftrougl) Comparative Religion 

3 Constructing appreciation of tfjc IBiblz 
Scribing an Stesurance for ite Jf uture 

5|enrp Hotoarb Hmton 



jWobern Snterpretation* JJresfc 

$. a. Pox 92, iflebforo, JKatftf. 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

CHAPTER I 

THE BIBLE ITSELF DEMANDS A FEESH 

APPBAISAL. 

1 Why do you not leave the Bible alone, and use up 
your critical activities on other things, which will not 
disturb the devotional needs of your most inoffensive 
fellow-men V asks the offended devotee. The answer is, 
1 It is not the critic who forces the issue; were he the 
Bible's enemy, he would ignore it. But he is interested in 
i it, and would understand it ; would do away with all ob- 
jections to it, would make it possible for the most deserv- 
ing part of the community, the honest intelligent person, 
to honor it as the Word of God. 

i But it is the Bible itself which forces the issue; as 
it stands; it commits suicide; and the devout student, 
miscalled critic, would rescue it for those devout people 
who are capable of feeling a contradiction, and who 
would believe in God and his Living Word, if they could 
help seeing its undeniable suicide. 



■ 



SCRIPTURE SUICIDE. 

1 Allegorism and punning, as Adam and diatheke. 

2 Contradictions, as in uses of death and resurrection. 

3 Misquotations, as i Cor- 15.45 from Gen. 11.7, lxx. 

4 Duplicates, as Matth. 15.38, 16.9, 14.19. See also 

Explanations of Beersheba, Gen. 21.31; 26.33; Beelzebul, Matt.10.25,12.24 

5 Misplacement, as Sermon on Mount, scattered in 

Lnke; and different connections of Mt. 9.15, and Jno. 3.29. 

6 Interpolations, asinterruptionsfrom.4cfeo/P//afe 

Mt. xxvii.3-10, 19, 24, 25, 52, 53, 62-66; xxviii.3, 4, 11-15. 

7 Imitations, as the Syro- Phoenician Woman, from 

i Kgs. 17. Entering on an ass and a colt, from Gen. 49.//. 

8 Omissions, as in Acts of the trial of ii Cor. i.8. 

9 Manufacture, as in artificiality of Johannine con- 

versations, and in the word -meanings of the genealogies. 

10 Tendency or purpose, as in 

Luke i.1-3; also i Cor. xv.31; Kom.8.36; ii Cor. iv.16. 

11 Contradictions, as the genealogies of Matthew 

and Lnke, and of the Synoptic and Johannine chronologies. 

12 Anachronisms, as the Taxing of Quirinus, 6 A.R 

13 Absurdities, as Jonah's whale, and Balaam's ass. 

14 Exaggerations, patriarchs' ages, Exodus numbers. 

15 Geographical errors, as in Gerasa, which is 40 

miles from the lake-shore; walking all night to go three miles from 
Cana to Capernaum, John 4.46-52; Bethany changed to Bethabara, 
aud Magada to Magdala. 

16 Moral Difficulties, as choosing Judas as disciple. 

17 Immorality, as depriving Gadarene owners of 

their swine. 

18 Non-moral views of God, as the Cursing Psalms 

Commanding theft from the Egyptians, slaughter of whole popul- 
ations, allowing bad meat to be sold to strangers, Dent, xiv.21. 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 



CHAPTER II 
ETHNOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OP THE BIBLE. 

THE BIBLE AS HUMAN DOCUMENT. 

Who would understand the Bible must first consider 
its creator — man. 

Unfortunately, there is as yet no ultimate psychol- 
ogy, because this science has just entered the experi- 
mental stage, and its data are not yet classified. 

From psychology we must turn to history. But its 
mass of facts must be passed over, for in themselves they 
are of no direct assistance. History itself, however, has 
begun its real career of interpreting its foundations. 
Ultimately it will fuse with ethnology, and both of these 
merge into a more complete and useful anthropology. 

On the threshold of the Bible, therefore, we meet 
once more the Delphic oracle, 'Know thyself.' 

THE BIBLE AN ADUMBBATION BATHER THAN 

A EECOBD. 

Man, therefore, has always, and always will find his 
religion in himself; and as he develops, his religion be- 
comes purer, preparing him for a step higher and up- 
ward in a spiral until he reach to heights yet unimagined. 

One change of standpoint, however, has been effected 
by Darwin's comparison of the structures of living be- 
ings: evolution which reaches upward before us, must 
have come up from below. As man's form developed 
from the anthropoid, so, because of the inexorable pro- 
gress of humanity, must any religion which places super- 
ior perfection, knowledge or attainment in the past, be 
doomed to be superseded by higher expressions. The 



6 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

only religion that has any elements of ultimate perma- 
nency will be one which proves elastic enough to keep 
pace with the progress of humanity; which recognizes 
no goal short of the salvation of the whole of humanity ; 
whose face is turned forwards to the Future, and not 
longing for and harking back to the Past. Till man, the 
living Bible, shall have attained his culmination, never 
can his perfect expression lie elsewhere than in the 
Future. 

THE BIBLE'S EECORD AN EDUCATING ASCENT. 

In the past, therefore, must we not expect to find 
greater, but less perfection. Not a degeneration, but a 
growth is the course of history. And the idea of a 
growth precludes sharp demarcations from age to age; 
it implies that of the coexisting elements, the best shall 
gradually preponderate, until the permanence of such 
predominance states the human problem in new terms. 
In other words, precise schemes of stages of development 
describe only the successive predominance of particular 
elements. The stages of such schemes must therefore 
not be understood as mutually exclusive. 

Guarding our statement in such manner, we may 
enjoy George Smith's suggestions (in his l Chaldean 
Genesis') that the Hebrew patriarchs in reality signify 
a progress of successively higher races, as follows: 

1. Adam, Humanity. 

2. Quain, ' Nest '-men, or Troglodites. 

3. M-ahale-el, Tent-men. 

4. Irad, City-men. 

5. Chenoq, City-dedicator, priest, individual. 

6. Methuselah, ' Weapon '-men. 

7. Lamech. 

8. Noah — ' Ship ' — men. 
Let us study this evolution under more modern 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 7 

EGYPTIAN TOTEMISM. 

The troglodite's main efforts were to protect him- 
self from the attacks of animals, and to feed on them. 
His worship was directed towards the animal totem of 
his tribe. His human prisoners were eaten. Socially, 
the age was promiscuous. Like animals, the young soon 
became estranged from their parents, and not infre- 
quently fought with them, when the family remained 
long enough together. Men were not yet self-conscious. 
This was the stone age, typified in Egyptian, long-linger- 
ing totemism among the pyramids. 

What worship the troglodite felt was no doubt a 
fetish— worship, of trees, springs and meteorites. His 
life was a pure objective, unreflective experience. 

PHOENICIAN DRUIDISM. 

When man became more conscious of himself, he di- 
rected his worship to more general phenomena of nature, 
such as fire, sex-organs, wine-intoxication, and ancestor- 
worship. His human prisoners were no longer eaten, but 
mutilated or sacrificed. 

Socially, this was the matriarchal age, when only 
through the mother could ancestry be traced; hence was 
she the nucleus of the tribe. This was the bronze age, 
of hewn stone circles_and mound-builders. The destruc- 
tiveness of fire may have drawn attention to the similar 
fatality of serpents. Last, through love, reverence and 
early spiritistic phenomena, came ancestor-worship. 

BABYLONIAN STAE-WOESHIP. 

When men began to develop their mental powers, 
they looked up at the fixed stars, and invented legends 
about them, in connection with human heroes who had 
disappeared from among them. Ancestor-worship de- 
veloped into magic, rituals sprang up in connection with 
burials; purifications were undertaken; sacrifices were 
limited to animals ; his prisoners were only enslaved and 



6 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

exploited. Conditions became stable enough for the su- 
perior strength of the male to assert itself over the 
female, enslaving her in the patriarchal age. Animals 
were still worshipped, but only allegorically, as serpents 
denoted wisdom; the dove, Venus 's love; the owl, Min- 
erva's learning. Here belongs the origin of the Zodiac; 
here began the worship of Gods in anthropomorphic 
statues. This age was well represented by the Chaldean 
civilization. 

PAESEE SUN-WORSHIP. 
When the moral faculty awakened, it merged plane- 
tary and lunar into sun-worship, giving rise to the numer- 
ous legends of heroes conquering dragons or serpents: 
Osiris overcoming Typhon; Apollo with Python; Marduk 
with Tiamat; Michael with the Dragon; Eros with Ophio- 
neus ; Ormuzd with Ahriman ; Dionysus with the Serpent- 
footed Titans ; Indra with Ahi ; Buddha with Mara-Naga. 
The animal idols were, by the XVIIIth Dynasty cleared 
out from Egyptian temples, turning them into oracles, 
healing-shrines, and Sibyllic initiation-caves. Patri- 
archal power waned; the individual citizen became the 
Unit of the State ; women were subject, but received that 
domestic reverence they commanded. Slavery ceased be- 
ing hopelessly permanent; education became more gen- 
eral. This was the Alexandrian — Eoman age ; the age of 
Messiahs, the typically Parsee age, in the Bible typified 
by Shem, — which may stand for shamash, the sun-god. 

BUDDHIST ALLEGOEISM. | 

When the moral faculty became the predominating 
partner, the ancient gods came to be allegorized, as 
among the Stoics. It was the age of parable; seeking 
spiritual results from uncritical material. So overwhelm- 
ing was the religious interest that men tortured and 
slew each other for doctrines. The brightest wits were 
at work ; but as they had no facts to go on, their energies 
drove them around in circles, instead of advancing. This 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 9 

was the great Gnostic age of mysteries and colossal sys- 
tems of theology; also that of brotherhoods, and un- 
worldly virtue. Slavery was lightened into serfdom, 
which could be thrown off by activity and merit. Hence 
arose political papacies, and Canossa-born vulgar ref- 
ormations, none the less tyrannical. Is it any wonder 
that such minds as Erasmus, too cultured to associate 
with the reformers who sympathized with him, chose to 
remain in the more allegorical surroundings of his birth. 

HELLENIC MYSTEEIES. 
When the faculty of judgment awoke, criticism sepa- 
rated facts from fancy, and solid progress began. From 
the great sceptic common-sense of the nations arose tole- 
ration ; and to insure their survival religious bodies were 
forced to purify themselves. Social conditions at last 
matured. Even serfdom disappeared, with the arrival 
of the universal ballot. Women became emancipated, 
and even attained more power than men, by claiming all 
their political rights, without surrendering the tradi- 
tional privileges of weakness. The family diminished, 
and individual life was lengthened. 

MODEBN SCIENTIFIC EEFOEMS. 
Should this development continue the various reli- 
gious bodies will coalesce, forming a religion of Human- 
ity, whose law will be conscience, whose sword will be 
compulsory education, and whose crown will be, as it ever 
was, health ; but besides this, a wholeness of character so 
comprehensive as to be yet unimagined. Impersonifica- 
tions shall fade before their significance. Individual men 
as saviors of the race will disappear before interpreters 
of discipline, culture, and wisdom; — that is, virtue and 
attainment will become ever more fashionable; 'I will 
pour out my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and daugh- 
ters shall prohesy, your old men shall dream dreams, 
and your young men shall see visions ; and also upon the 
servants and handmaids in those days will I pour out my 
Spirit. > 



10 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

COEXISTENCE OF THESE CULTS. 

While it is illuminating to distinguish these various 
stages of religion, nothing could be further from the 
truth than to suppose that in any one age all existing 
ages were representatives thereof. There have always 
been, and there probably always will be on earth, at any 
one time, representatives of all of these stages of culture, 
but the relative number of each class varies gradually in 
inverse ratio. While in prehistoric antiquity the over- 
whelming mass of humanity were troglodites, no doubt 
there were even then men with all the aspirations of the 
fifth religious stage; and to the troglodites appeared 
these as priests, prophets and gods. Even as late as the 
Eoman age appeared a Pythagoras, a Socrates, a Plato, 
a Gautama, a Zoroaster — heralds of an age perhaps yet 
unrealized. Gradually, no doubt, shall the lower races 
die out, slowly disappearing one by one; but neverthe- 
less as the preponderance of humanity reaches the highest 
levels, it must be hoped that they will never fail to find a 
peak of perfection still looming above them, to keep the 
whole trend of evolution still progressing. 

DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF THE BIBLE. 

Such a dynamic conception of humanity is it, that 
finds its expression in, or that represents the Bible. It 
contains elements of all stages of human development 
and religion, from the lowest to the highest : troglodytic 
Egyptian totemism, as in the teraphim of the patriarchs ; 
Phoenician druidism, as in the intoxication of Noah and 
the slaying of prisoners; the Babylonian star-worship, 
as in Jacob's Fear of his father Isaac, and the Lord of 
Hosts of Stars; the Parsee sun-worship, as in the Sun 
of Eighteousness, with healing in his wings ; the Buddhist 
Allegorism, as in the parable of the Prodigal Son; the 
Hellenic Mystery Worship, as in the mysteries of the 
Kingdom of Heaven; last, the noblest visions of the 
future, the white light that shall result from the combi- 
nation of all these separate spectrum-hues in an indivi- 
dual prayer, effort, and education. 






CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 11 



CHAPTER III 

THE BIBLE AS INDEX OF COMPAEATIVE RE- 
LIGION. 

DEFINITE BIBLICAL SOURCES. 

Alluring as such an analysis of the Bible into ethno- 
logical stratification may be, ethnology is not yet de- 
veloped enough to offer any permanent classification ; so 
that, however suggestive what we have advanced may be, 
it could easily be destroyed by different ethnological 
analyses. It will be wiser therefore to limit ourselves to 
ascertained facts, impossible of successful denial. From 
time to time similarities to Biblical stories have been 
pointed out in other religons. To such, the literalist 
could if he pleased, merely close his eyes ; but the problem 
compels his attention when he finds some incidents which, 
in their Bible context are abrupt, meaningless, or 
illogical; while in their ethnic statement they are con- 
secutive, reasonable and fully explained, as, the Parable 
of the Prodigal Son, from Buddhist Sources. 

BABYLONIAN SOURCES. 
The creation-epic, and the flood; the sabbath, the 
cherubim; Nimrod, David; King Sargina exposed in ark; 
location of Babel-tower, and home of Abraham; Pillar 
of fire and smoke; Ez. 8. 16; sun-priests; Ishtar as 
Esther; Mordecai's dream. 

PALESTINIAN SOURCES. 

Shem or Samson; Jephtha's daughters; children 

passing through fire to Moloch; the Lord called Baal, 

as in David's son Baal-jada; Noah's legend; the gods 

Sebaot and Jao; the brazen temple-sea; celebration o£ 



12 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

the hanged god Marsyas ; the worship of the only-begot- 
ten Adonis-Tammuz. 

ZOROASTRIAN SOURCES. 
God as fire ; the devil Ahriman ; resurrection, end of 
world, savior to come; second life; unpardonable Sin; 
Jeshurun; faith and works; a parable of wise and 
foolish ; Antichrist, the Lie ; the white horse of revelation ; 
judgment, gospel, inheritance, token ; apostle ; Daniel, and 
Tobit 3.7, 8. the Revelation incidents. 

BUDDHIST. 

The presentation in the Temple, the fasting; the 
preexistence ; the fig-tree (Jno. 1.46); 'has this one 
sinned'; the betrayal; parables; see Seydel, p. 298, the 
word; the seed; see Edmund's work. 

EGYPTIAN. 
Joseph story (Story of Dudu) ; circumcision; bull 
worship as the golden calf; passover, the trinity. 

ARABIAN. 
Jahve as rain-god; Sinai as sanctuary; secrecy of 
divine name; patriarchal nomadism; Hobab the Kenite 
father-in-law of Moses ; tribe divisions ; Arabian months ; 
moon worship ; horns of altar ; Queen of Sheba. 
NABATHEAN oe SABEAN. 
The baptist cult. 

GREEK SOURCES. 
Sacraments of baptism and common meal; mystery 
terms. 

ROMAN SOURCES. 
Organization; Funerary Societies. 

ALEXANDRIAN SOURCES. 

WISDOM OF SOLOMON. 

Messianic nature; work on earth; controversy and 
trial; death, resurrection and ascension; epistles' refer- 
ences. 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 13 

PHILO. 

Distinction between 'God' and 'the God,' image of 
God; word of God; son of God as high-priest; milk and 
meat; the travelling rock of wisdom; God Swearing by 
himself; Messiah as man and as divine, as Christ and 
redeemer; as son of David, and of man; Kingdom of 
heaven; names of Christ; Christ as God and Savior; as 
mediator; as good Shepherd seeking the lost; self-sacri- 
fice of the Logos. 

LITERARY SOURCES. 

JOSEPHUS. 

Resuscitation after taking down from the cross ; Ves- 
pasian 's miracles; looking on Mt. of Olives; prophecy 
of ruin, and of army ; trial of Jesus son of Ananus ; de- 
rision of Carabbas in Alexandria, followed by crucifixion, 
as in Laureolus, or Stephen. 

HERODOTUS. 

Love of the women, stealing of dead body, 2.121. 3, 4. 

OTHER SOURCES. 

Crucifixion details in Maccabeau psalm 22 ; answer to 
repentant sinner, 1 Sam. 28.19 ; cataclysm in Zech. 14. 

PRIORITY OF SOURCE UNIMPORTANT. 

Experts in any one field could increase the similari- 
ties here mentioned many-fold; the present ones are ad- 
duced merely as suggestions, so as to enable us to come 
to an intelligent solution thereof. Some of these similari- 
ties evidently ante-date the Bible, others may be claimed 
to be later ; but the whole question of copying, of priority, 
of source, — a question which arouses much ill-feeling, — 
is quite unimportant, for two reasons. 

The first is that some persons would not believe the 
most circumstantial demonstration, and it is only rarely 
that this is possible. Besides, some would not believe an 
even irrefutable proof, unless the time, place and manner 
of copying were shown, — a condition which cannot be met 



14 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

even with books of the present day. Those who have in- 
telligence enough to see a correspondence will not wait 
for such a demonstration. 

Evidently, therefore, a demonstration of obligation 
to a source is impossible, and even were it possible it 
would be useless. In the past it was taught that a 
writing was good because it was inspired; and 
thereby many rudimentary questionable passages in 
the Bible were forced on the admiration of many inno- 
cent people. But nowadays it is generally under- 
stood that writing is inspired because it is good and 
beautiful. Therefore, as long as what we find in the Bible 
is good and beautiful it matters little or nothing what its 
original source (if any legend or teaching ever had an 
original source!) may have been. 

The significance of such an index to the comparative 
religion to be found in the Bible is therefore not a ques- 
tion of priority of source, but that in no country under 
heaven has the divine spirit left itself without a witness. 

And as a matter of fact, the early Christian apolo- 
gists took pains to gather as many such instances as pos- 
sible to demonstrate that God had spoken to the fathers 
at sundry times and in divers manners. 

THE BOGY OF ORIGINALITY. 

Not only is priority immaterial, but even originality 
is generally questionable. Nothing new can be true, nor 
can anything true be new except to the ignorant. Dur- 
ing the course of a man's education he discovers all the 
historic mare's nests; and only as he progresses does he 
realize that education consists in progressive fidelity to 
facts, in adaptation to surroundings, in conspiring with 
the trend of environment. Originality, as in all scientific 
discoveries, consists in yet unheard of compliance to 
natural laws; and only the most learned can hope to 
make i original' combinations. So, higher than original- 
ity, will we prize Jewish involuntary fidelity to the sur- 
rounding religions they incorporated. 



CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 15 



CHAPTER IV 

CONCLUSION 

THE SUPEEME VALUE OF THE BIBLE. 

If, therefore, the inspiration of an utterance is 
measured by its potency for good, beauty and holiness, 
how can the inspiration of the sublime style and elevated 
thought of the Bible be affected by the discovery of 
equally beautiful and sublime utterances elsewhere? 
L Will the double beauty not rather enhance both? 

The Bible is the most sublime book ever written, not 
in spite of these parallelisms, but just because of them. 
That it contains the chief beauties of all other forms of 
worship makes it only a compendium of all the inspira- 
tion man ever received. 

Justly, therefore does the sixth Article of Beligion 
teach that the Bible * contains all things necessary to sal- 
vation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may 
be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that 
it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be 
thought a requisite necessary to salvation/ 



16 CULMINATION OF BIBLICAL VALUES 

THE BIBLE AS TEXT-BOOK OF COMPAEATIVE 

EELIGION. 

The value of the Bible has therefore culminated when 
it is seen to be the most comprehensive compendium of 
cosmic religious history. From every stage of human 
devotion — fetichistic, star-worshipping, Solar, Zoro- 
astrian, has Jewish involuntary fidelity to what was at 
various times forced on him providentially pointed 
through a text-book of comparative religion to the des- 
tined universality of religion itself, and to the ultimate 
importance of the spiritual life, when God shall be 'all 
in all.' 

When, moreover, we consider how cheaply it is dis- 
tributed; how universally, as the 'best seller in the book- 
market'; and with what dignified prestige; and by how 
many devoted missionaries who are thus ignorantly 
spreading abroad and keeping alive the legends of Baby- 
lonia, the main truths of Zoroastrianism, and the chief 
biographical points of Buddhism, — it is evident that the 
Bible is the greatest blessing that ever fell to the lot of 
man. Well may we believe that when men will begin to 
understand what a treasure they have in their hands, 
they will value it all the more than if it was what its mis- 
taken advocates have thought it was, a lawyer's plea for 
their own form of religion. 

All that it needs is therefore an efficient and thorough 
comparative index ; and when this will be sufficiently cir- 
culated, the Bible will no doubt never die, as the most 
priceless heritage of the ages whose historians have 
perished, and have left us nothing but their religious 
aspirations in this divine book. 



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